Keep the lights on at Lumiere

Aim

Our goal is to raise enough funds to significantly reduce our energy bill. So we can continue the good work we've begun since Feb 25.

Lumiere Cinema launched in February 2025, and like many new business operations, it failed to initially meet financial requirements that are needed for any new business or charity. However, over the last 18 months, we have worked hard to create a community hub that delivers essential lifestyle opportunities for individuals, organizations, and businesses.

While we are primarily a cinema that focuses on delivering new releases, since our inception, we have screened over 500 classic films, a selection of art house and foreign language movies, and lots of event cinema. We have hosted the premieres of nearly 90 indie films, and we have become a valuable community hub for organizations that deal with loneliness and isolation, SEND's needs, health issues, and have clubs for lots of different organizations.

During our inception, we found ourselves trapped into a contract that was excessively high in terms of electricity due to a previous operator's apparent debt. Through a scenario of different issues with the provider invoicing the wrong companies, we quickly found ourselves both out of our depth and with a significant bill growing to an incredible amount in 2026, which as an ongoing expense is deliverable, but the backdated amount is a tough battle to overcome.

Despite being a profitable and viable business, all the issues that we incurred in 2025 impacted our revenue, and while in 2026, we have a very successful operation, let alone a charity, we have a huge energy bill which we need to try and reduce as quickly as we possibly can to allow this operation to thrive. Therefore, we are now trying to raise £10,000  to help keep the lights on. £10,000 isn't the amount of money we need to raise, but it's a significant amount of money to reduce the period of time that we owe this energy supplier money for. If we can raise beyond £10,000, all the better, but the key thing that we are trying to combat right now is reducing the period of time that we owe money and are committed to a payment plan, which is  growth restricting.

We are currently expected to pay £200 a day until late in 2028 to end our debt and ongoing bills of £6000-£8000 per month. With such a longterm commitment of a time period, this massively reduces our opportunities to grow, expand, and deliver other things to our community. While you can simply make donations, as you can see, there are a variety of other options that are available that may benefit you or be of benefit to people you wish to benefit from the aid that you've provided us.

While we don't like being in the situation we are in and asking people to help us out yet again, we have delivered a lot for our community, and we have kept up with the promises that we made to our community during the time period we've been operational. We've become so much more than a cinema, and we have touched many people in many ways to show them that a cinema can be much more than a place to watch films, from concerts, to quiz nights, wine tasting to book launches, parties to a place for charities to raise funds. We are a place where workers in isolation can come and be part of something and different groups can gather for meeting. Where societies can hold their AGM"s and where artists can create. 

Every penny generated will go directly to the energy bill that we currently have. We've taken this option because the majority of our members have said that they wouldn't mind paying more money for cinema tickets, but that's not what this should be about. We have a very viable existing organisation that unfortunately had a start that was less than we expected to generate. And while we are not only delivering on our financial goals in the present and exceeding them, the past issues of cash generation will continue to haunt us the longer we allow this bill to fester. So we're looking for people who will support us and obviously get something of use in return.

Funding method

Keep what you raise – this project will receive all pledges made by 1st October 2026 at 12:00pm