Ioka Theater to close on Christmas Eve

For as long as most Seacoast residents can remember, Ioka Theater’s triangular awning has been a familiar landmark in downtown Exeter. It glows on snowy winter evenings among the town’s holiday decorations and casts shadows over pedestrians who shop along Water Street in the summer. The sign protruding from the theater’s brick façade seems embedded in the landscape. 

But not for long. Unless a buyer interested in preserving the building as a performing arts venue swoops in for a last-minute rescue, the Ioka will shut its doors for good on Wednesday, Dec. 24.

Co-owner and president Roger Detzler said a number of factors forced him to put the theater on the market, including the necessity of expensive safety upgrades, high insurance and utility costs, and an “overall hostile business environment.” The Ioka has been listed for sale at $995,000 since the beginning of October.

Completed 93 years ago, the Ioka is one of the oldest independently owned, privately operated theaters in New England. Original owner Judge Edward Mayer first opened the theater’s doors on Nov. 1, 1915, screening the film “The Birth of a Nation.” But, like many of the owners who have followed, Mayer had trouble covering his costs. Drowning in debt, he turned over the theater to a local attorney the following spring and vanished from town.

A number of new owners arose over subsequent decades. Jim Blanco began managing the Ioka in 1987 and took ownership of the 405-seat theater in 1995. During Blanco’s years at the helm, the Ioka became primarily known as a movie theater, showing major Hollywood films on its 17-by-32 foot screen. He, too, facing competition from home entertainment and changes in distribution that made times tough for indie theaters, put the historic theater on the market in May 2003 for $999,000.

It was just shy of five years ago that Detzler and other co-owners purchased the building. He had a vision of using the facility not only as a movie theater but as a multi-purpose performing arts venue with music, comedy and other live entertainment. He poured money into improvements to make the building more accommodating for traveling artists, expanding the stage and adding in-house production features like lighting, curtains and dressing rooms. But he still found it difficult to draw a crowd in Exeter.

“Occasionally, it worked, and we’d get an act in there and we’d sell the place out, but that was clearly the exception,” Detzler said.
Some of the biggest successes came when Detzler managed to book musical acts that were on the cusp of stardom or were riding the wave of a new hit song. The Dresden Dolls performed at the Ioka in March 2006, and The Commitments played there a year later. This past August, Rehab came to town, bringing its immensely popular “Bartender Song” (a.k.a. “Sittin’ at a Bar”).

The Ioka has also hosted comedy events, fashion shows, film series—even burlesque dancers and, recently, a professional fight league. Rather than going out in search of popular attractions, Detzler waited for acts to come to him. “What we did was work with producers and promoters who needed a venue. That’s why you had this great, odd variety of acts that were always at the Ioka,” he said.

But Detzler’s thin budget limited his marketing efforts, and many events fell flat. “Either the public just didn’t know what we were doing or didn’t believe that the Ioka could put on a great show,” he said.

Complicating matters was new legislation that required performing arts venues to meet stricter safety codes. Detzler took over the Ioka less than a year after a deadly nightclub fire killed around 100 people in Rhode Island. The tragedy spurred states to pass tougher safety regulations that were expensive to implement, especially for old existing structures like the Ioka.

The legislation gave Detzler a time limit for installing a sprinkler system and other safety measures. “It was a situation where we had to show a certain amount of progress every year toward the eventual implementation of a complete to-code system,” he said.

Detzler would have been forced to start investing significant amounts of money into a sprinkler system next year, and he is in no position to start dumping funds into a project that will not yield any market return. Compounding matters are escalating insurance and utility costs that have “absolutely devastated” the Ioka, he said.

Looking ahead, Detzler does not expect the theater to rebound from its precarious financial situation anytime soon. The first quarter of the year is always a slow time for the Ioka, and it is likely to be especially poor in the dismal economic climate that has descended on the nation. Not only is the economy taking a toll on potential Ioka patrons, but touring acts appear to have scaled back their travel plans.

“Producers aren’t calling us up with show bookings. We’re not seeing the corporate interest we used to,” Detzler said. “The phone just stopped ringing.”

The Ioka is the latest in a string of area performing arts venues that have shut down in recent months. The Bell Center for the Arts in Dover closed in March. The Stone Church in Newmarket sold at auction in September and has not reopened. The Mill Pond Center for the Arts in Durham has been on sale since August, as has the Rockingham Ballroom in Newmarket. And now the Ioka.
“That’s five venues just in one (area), and that’s just in this year. That’s a devastating statistic,” Detzler said. “Are there many left to lose? The list is getting pretty short of the ones that are still breathing.”

Robert Yergeau, owner of the Rockingham Ballroom on Ash Swamp Road, said he is selling the venue because of a career change and not because of financial distress. He bought the ballroom and rescued it from bankruptcy 14 years ago, preserving a business that has existed for 74 years.

Yergeau said he has not felt the pinch of economic times as harshly as many other venues. “The clientele that we have is an older clientele and the need for ballroom dancing in this area has been just greatly appreciated,” he said. Although potential buyers have expressed interest in the ballroom, which is on the market for $439,000, it still has not sold.

Unless the state Legislature does something to loosen safety code requirements for older structures or help pay for upgrades, Detzler worries other historic venues will soon close. Noting that the Ioka brought visitors to Exeter who also spent money at other local businesses and restaurants, he said the entire community would feel the loss.

The Ioka’s last event will be a screening of the film “The Nutcracker,” featuring the Kirov Ballet, on Dec. 24 at 7 p.m. If the venue has not sold to someone who wants to take over operation of the theater by then, it will likely be sold for development, Detzler said.