Every Friday This October, Gallatin's Palace Theater Hosts Something Different. A Film Festival Will Spill Onto the Square.

In the Palace Theater's earliest years, a silent movie cost a nickel. Bill Roth, the jeweler who owned the place, made the sound effects himself by breaking glass, blowing horns and drumming. The building opened in 1913, and Historic Downtown Gallatin describes it as the oldest silent movie theater in Tennessee still standing in its original location. It is still at 146 North Water Avenue.

When the Palace reopened in November 2000, it was Gallatin's only cinema. First-run and second-run family movies played every week, and the stated goal was a $20 night out for a family of four, popcorn, sodas and candy included.

This month's calendar reads very differently. Weekly movies have given way to a comedy night, a whodunit, a roots-rock show, a boutique fashion show, a new musical, a candidate forum and a free Rotary film night. On October 16 the room also becomes home base for something Gallatin has never had: a juried short-film festival. That festival runs its program through two more downtown rooms.

A different host every Friday

Something is on the Palace's public calendar every Friday in October 2026, and each Friday has a different organizer behind it.

Most of these nights belong to people who don't run the building. A flower shop pairs a bouquet class with a romantic comedy and sells local vendors' goods before the movie. Three downtown boutiques show their fall collections and holiday previews from the stage. The Rotary Club pays for a free movie. A police fraternal group hosts a forum for candidates running in Gallatin, Portland and Westmoreland. Only two October listings put a feature film on the screen, and each comes packaged as a social event.

October 30 shows how wide the range has become. That morning, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Historic Downtown Gallatin hosts preschool trick-or-treating with the merchants on the square. That evening at 6:30, the Rotary's free family movie starts inside the Palace.

Why a nonprofit's calendar looks like this

The building's ownership explains why a fashion show and a candidate forum share its October calendar. Roth ran the Palace until 1977. His son, Bill Jr., kept it going for 10 more years and closed it in 1987. After that the theater sat padlocked. Cobwebs hung on the plastic poinsettias in the lobby, and pigeons lived in the auditorium. In 1993, 80 years after it opened, Johnny and Sonny Garrott bought the Palace and the Roth Building next door at auction. They donated the theater to Greater Gallatin, Inc., now Historic Downtown Gallatin, Inc., for renovation.

Saving it took most of a decade. Donations raised $90,000 to stabilize the building, but volunteer momentum faded. By the end of 1995, Greater Gallatin was ready to give up. Then a $350,000 federal transportation grant arrived. By the November 2000 reopening, restoring the two buildings had cost an estimated $700,000-plus.

So the Palace is owned by a downtown nonprofit, not a movie chain. That makes it a room local groups can book for their own nights. Some of Roth's own work is still in it, too. The seats are nearly a century old, and the wall sconces are originals he made from tin and cut glass.

Town Creek begins at the Palace and keeps going

The newest event on the calendar started in this room. Kevin Chopson, named Gallatin's Poet Laureate in 2021, came up with the Town Creek Film Festival after a visit to the Palace, the Gallatin News reported in June. He is artistic director, and Ryan Inman and Ted Brown are managing directors. Historic Downtown Gallatin is listed as the host.

The festival is the first event on this month's calendar designed to leave the building. Its two nights of independent short films, from Tennessee, around the country and select cities abroad, are spread across three downtown rooms:

1. The Palace Theater, 146 N. Water Ave. The main screenings run 7 to 9 p.m. on Friday, October 16, and Saturday, October 17.
2. The Annex at Prince Street Pizza & Pub, 123 E. Prince St. The late-night screenings land here. Prince Street is a pizza and craft beer pub that also rents space for private events. The festival overview lists the Annex sessions at 10 to 11 p.m., but the individual Annex tickets say 9:30 to 10:30 p.m. Go by the time printed on your ticket.
3. The Basement at 106 Public Square. 106 Public Square is a flexible workspace in the historic Suddarth Building downtown. On Saturday, its basement hosts a screening and a panel on special effects led by a local film-industry veteran.

For one weekend, that turns two of the square's working businesses, a pub and a coworking office, into screening rooms. All-access pass holders also get preferred entry to the after-parties.

What got in, and what it costs

The festival's entry rules set the length of an evening. Films had to run between 3 and 33 minutes including credits and be completed in 2024 or later. Films shown commercially in central Tennessee, or already streaming on a major platform, couldn't compete for Official Selection. Most entries were reviewed by at least six team members, and every entry by at least three screeners or a programmer. The jury includes filmmakers, artists, actors, professors and film fans, and it awards a best-of in each category plus an overall Best of Festival.

Submissions cost $25, with no fee waivers. The deadline was September 15, and filmmakers heard back by September 30. The selected titles weren't public when this was written, so check the festival's ticket page before the weekend for the lineup.

Here are the current prices on the festival's Eventeny ticket page, before fees:

• Annex screening: $10, or $10.96 at checkout
• Basement screening and panel: $10, or $10.96 at checkout
• Palace screening: $12, or $13.08 at checkout
• Two-day all-show pass: $32, or $34.34 at checkout

The pass costs less than buying every session separately, and it's the only ticket that includes preferred after-party entry.

Daylight on North Water Avenue

The festival shares its name with Town Creek, whose greenway runs about 2.25 miles from Triple Creek Park to Franklin Street downtown. The Tennessean reported the greenway finished in 2016, after more than a decade of planning. In 2025, a Tennessee Arts Commission grant paid for seven new rotating art collections near the College Street trailhead and north toward Westland Avenue.

On the same block of North Water Avenue as the Palace, the square's daytime has a new anchor. The Paper Mill, a Mt. Juliet restaurant, opened its second location at 118 North Water Avenue, in the space Swaney Swifts recently left. Owner Justin Ragan runs it with his wife Erika and daughter Emma. It serves every day from 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. The kitchen closes four hours before the Palace's 7 p.m. curtain on festival nights, so lunch and the show are separate stops.

Mid-month, the square has evening programming three nights in a row: the fashion show from 6 to 8 p.m. on the 15th, then the festival's Palace screenings and late Annex sessions on the 16th and 17th. The week before, "Robbery at the Rockvale Theatre" runs from a 6:30 p.m. opening on October 7 through a 5 p.m. close on Sunday, October 11. The Webb Wilder show on October 10 is billed as "bona fide Roots Rock Royalty."

At CHORD Real Estate, our concierge team follows downtown Gallatin's calendar as closely as its storefronts. If you'd like help planning a night on the square, a weekend for visiting family, or the logistics around this month's events, request your personal Real Estate Concierge.