June 22, 2010

Return of the Drive-In Theater?

NPR has a story about a drive-in theater in Belleville, IL which is adding a third screen to the two it already has.

Interested in opening one? An equipment supplier to the industry offers these thoughts:

What will be my startup costs? Projectos and screen are only part of the investment that you will need to get started. You will need an appropriate structure from which to project. This structure must be equipped with electrical power, ventilation and enough room to operate a movie projection system, and be secure enough to prevent theft. The following are estimates of a "normal" drive-in startup cost. Projector/Film travel/FM Transmitter $50,000, inflatable AIRSCREEN - $35,0000, Box office system - $15,000, concessions - $30,000. Other costs include your projection building/platform, electrical improvements, permits and licenses, etc. Overall a budget of $150,000-250,000 should be planned for a single or screen drive-in.
I'm pretty sure the one my great-aunt and uncle operated in Bagdad, AZ didn't cost that much, but then they opened it in the 1950s.

Oh, and those startup costs don't include acquisition of the real estate.

I worked as a projectionist part-time while I was out on Kwajalein. Back then the medium was film, not digital, and you had to watch the end of each reel closely to find the cue marks in the upper right corner of the film (there's a good description of the process here at Section 2.2.1.1). I only did that part-time. My employer of necessity showed the same film two or three nights in a row, and it got really tiresome quickly. I remember showing a B&W version of "Hamlet" (probably this one, starring Maximilian Schell, although how it got from TV to film reels is beyond me) for three straight nights, which wouldn't have been so bad except it's a really lousy version of the play.

Posted by Linkmeister at June 22, 2010 01:26 PM | TrackBack
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