I don't know when, or ever, I'll have a chance to venture back home to SF, but let me chime in here. I’m pretty much of a born pessimist, but my hunch is that Noir City will return to the Castro, perhaps not in 2023, but 2024. It would be a money-making festival for the new owners, and moving NC permanently to Oakland is bizarre. SF and noir go together like bread and butter, since so many noirs were either filmed or take place there. When it comes to Oakland and film noir, let me quote novelist Gertrude Stein, who was raised in Oakland – “There is no there there”. Imo, most SF noir fans will not drive or go on BART to go to Oakland. Dan and Carl can take BART instead 😊 A modern new sound system is badly needed, as is getting new, more comfortable seating. It may take out 200-300 seats, but so what? You can can still pack Noir City with 1100-1200 people (assuming a lingering pandemic changes the whole paradigm of film going). Lastly, and this is probably impossible, but the small men’s room in the basement down a steep set of stairs is a real pain. Especially during Noir City, where you have a large portion of the male demographic trying to make it up and down those stairs on aging pins.