Downtown Fresno’s Crest Theatre offers $2 movie tickets all month

Downtown Fresno’s Crest Theatre began selling movie tickets for $2 on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays in June, a bargain price meant to fill seats inside the 1949 landmark and bring more foot traffic to Broadway Plaza. Doors opened an hour before showtime, with Friday movies starting at 8 p.m., Saturday movies at 7 p.m. and Sunday movies at 6 p.m. at 1170 Broadway Plaza.

The discount comes at a moment when the Crest is trying to stay visible as both a movie house and a community venue. The Historic Crest Building hosts musicals, films, concerts and other public or private events, giving the theater a broader role than a single-screen nostalgia stop. In downtown Fresno, where merchants depend on people lingering after dark, the test is whether a $2 ticket can do more than fill an auditorium, whether it can help reintroduce families to the center of the city and spill over into nearby restaurants and shops.

The Crest opened July 7, 1949, and was originally operated by Fox West Coast Theatres. It once seated 1,284 people before the capacity was later reduced to 557. The building closed in 2020 and had reopened by June 2023 as a live performance venue, preserving a space that historic Fresno documentation describes as one of downtown’s ornate movie palaces. That same documentation says the Crest’s 50-foot-tall sign is the most elaborate example of commercial neon work in Fresno.

The bargain-ticket push also fits a longer survival strategy. In 2025, a fundraiser said the theater’s compressor failed during the pandemic shutdown, making summer comfort difficult and sending restoration work to The Crest Legacy Foundation, a registered 501(c)(3). A Fresno Bee report later that year said the Crest was raising money to replace its air-conditioning unit, with help from local musicians and moviegoers. The current promotion is another sign that the theater is leaning on classic-film programming and community events to stay active and accessible.

For Fresno’s downtown core, the stakes are plain: if a historic venue can turn a $2 ticket into a steady weekend crowd, the benefit could reach beyond the auditorium and into the block around it.