When TodayTix acquired Secret Cinema in 2022 for a reported $100 million, it marked a new era for the company, which started life as a ragtag bunch of film enthusiasts trying to bring movies to life. Originally, the screenings were kept secret (hence the name) and staged in out-of-the-way locations with audiences only finding out what they were seeing upon arrival.
But a few public slip-ups (such as a spate of last-minute cancellations, including the opening nights of a highly-anticipated “Back to the Future” screening in 2015) followed by the pandemic shutting down the events industry, saw Secret Cinema so strapped for cash it had resorted to Kickstarter funding. It needed a superhero to save it and along came TodayTix, the event ticketing company founded by Brian M. Fenty and Merritt Baer in 2013.
With Baer now at the helm of Secret Cinema (former CEO Max Alexander and founder Fabien Riggall having long exited), he is focused on steering the ship into less choppy waters. The first step has been to sign a 10-year lease for a venue (currently being built) at the Greenwich Peninsula in London, just a short walk from the O2 stadium, where, fittingly, the inaugural spectacle will be “Pirates of the Caribbean” next spring.
