While much of the exhibition industry gathered at CineEurope to discuss premium formats, technology and market share, 788 independent cinema and festival leaders convened in Chicago for IND/EX 2026. As Andreas Fuchs reports, the agenda focused less on shiny new equipment and more on the practical business of survival: fundraising, accessibility, staffing, advocacy, audience development and the ethics of exhibition. Independent cinemas may not be able to outspend the major circuits, but they can certainly out-belong them.

The numbers suggest this is more than feel-good programming. A survey of more than 27,000 moviegoers found that over 70% consider their preferred art house cinema highly valuable to their quality of life, while 91% believe it improves their community. Art House Convergence cinemas have increased grosses 8.8% year-over-year and 38% since 2019. Combined, they would represent the 13th-largest cinema circuit in the United States. Nearly one-quarter of respondents began attending their preferred art house within the past three years, with 68% of those newer patrons under 45; an encouraging rebuttal to the idea that independent cinema audiences are aging into extinction.

Art House Convergence President Deirdre Haj distilled the sector’s advantage neatly: “Those big chains, they have customers. We have communities.” Amid media consolidation, shrinking arts funding and pressure on independent distributors, that distinction is becoming increasingly important. Community is not simply independent cinema’s warm-and-fuzzy differentiator; it is its audience-development strategy, advocacy platform and, increasingly, its business model.