This is the one we went to. $25 a carload (which worked out to $5 a head) for The Dark Knight Rises and Ted. You can’t beat that for pricing. If they can make this pay, they’re not in any hardship. And no one is fighting over access to land in Mendon.
I went to the Starlite Drive-In a couple of times when I still lived in Bloomington, IN. They’re only open on the weekends, and presumably only during the summer. About 30 minutes up the road, there’s the Centerbrook Drive-in, which is also still in operation — but again, not every night of the week, and only during the summer.
The owners of drive-in movie theaters probably have very little in the way of costs if they choose to shut down for the winter; they don’t really have to worry about heating, electricity, snow removal, staff salaries, or (of course) acquiring movies. They probably have owned the land they sit on for decades, so no mortgage or rent expenses either. And I assume that property taxes are fairly low in rural areas.
One of our local drive-ins charges $7 a head for first run double features. Snack bar is fantastic and similarly reasonably priced. The other drive-in runs $9 a head; double feature there as well.
Yes, we have two drive-ins within twenty minutes. I sometimes think we found an time hole when we moved out here. Tiny town with one traffic light. No Starbucks in our or most of the surrounding towns, and there are at least eight ice cream parlours–real ice cream parlours that make their own stuff–and little parades, unlocked doors, etc.
To make it really bizarre, we’re less than an hour from NYC.
A couple years ago I asked How do drive-in movie finances work?
In the '60s, at least one Winnipeg drive-in tried electric “in-car heaters” in an attempt to stay open through winter.
As I recall, each heater was bulky — 16 inches to 18 inches square, with one side being a grille with a fan and heater coil behind. The heaters were attached by wires to the speaker posts.
As I recall, the length of heater wire was surrounded by a metal chain. I guess the heater was supposed to go through an open window that would roll up on it. The chain probably was there less for strength than to preclude a car door closing on it.
The heaters lasted a few years, then were removed. But the drive-in was open for years after that.
Gad. Come to think of it, I saw A Hard Day’s Night at that drive-in — in the summer.
Drive in theaters did have a high maintenance cost until they started transmitting the sound to pick up on radio. It’s also more expensive to maintain a drive in theater. It’s bigger and you can’t just sweep the lot. Indoor theaters don’t have weeds growing in them, and don’t need grading and resurfacing. Many of them only operated part of a year. The taxes are paid for the whole year though. But for a lot of them, as mentioned somewhere above, increasing real estate values didn’t justify operating a marginal business. On a large piece of flat land. Oddly a couple of closed down drive ins around here haven’t been developed. One may be an issue because of it’s location next to a river that periodically floods. The other I assume will be turned into shopping or condos before long. We do have one open. I think they’re open in the winter time, but the only movie they show then is called “Closed for the Season”.
I love the idea of drive-ins but we have one here and it’s been underwhelming. It’s seasonal, only open Fri and Sat from May-Aug. It fills up and they start turning people away by 7:30, so you have to be there by 7 and spend two plus hours sitting in a hot car or out walking around waiting on dusk. I’ve always wondered why they’re not open in the spring and fall when it would actually be a pleasant time to go. Every time I think about going, I remember how easy and comfortable the theater is and go there instead.
Business-wise, a drive-in can play 2 or 3 movies per day when the weather is decent. We have a 16 screen theater that, including the parking lot, takes up less space than the drive-in and it’s open all day, 16 screens, 365 days a year. But everyone says theaters make their money on concessions and very little on ticket sales. Imagine how little a drive-in makes.
I was surprised to come across a newly developed retro drive-in just outside of Escalante UT a couple of months ago. They’ve combined it with a RV park where you can stay overnight in an Airstream and stocked the lot with vintage cars. They were doing a film shoot or something when I was there so I didn’t have a chance to check it out. Looks like a place I’d like to stay, though.
There is a new drive in northwest Harris county just outside Houston. Prices are very reasonable $6 a head for a first run double feature, two screens, digital projection and the sound is sent thru your cars FM radio. The snack bar ,is good with reasonable prices. I don’t live very far from it, “The Future Mrs. LIONsob” and I go there a couple of times a month.
Peace
LIONsob
Thanks, all for your responses. I too have fond memories of taking my then girlfriend to the drive-in. As I recall, little of the movie was seen, we were to busy making out!
And also, of course, when a bunch of us guys went, hiding in the trunk to sneak in was truly an adventure. (in my dad’s '55 Chevy!)
I’m also surprised and glad that there are so many drive-ins alive and working in our beautiful country.
Sure brings back memories…
Yeah me too. Daylight Savings Time was not a problem. The drive-in in my area was only open during the Summer months anyway.
The shows started about 9-9:30pm and often were tripple plays, 3 movies. It was in the early '70s and I could legitimately keep my 16 year old girlfriend out until 2:00am. There was no official, legal curfew for minors then.
I remember watching “Play Misty For Me” and 2 other Clint Eastwood movies that might have been interesting if either of us actually were watching.
Saw “Two Lane Blacktop” because she was a big James Taylor fan. That was the first time I ever told her to put her shirt back on, I wanted to watch this.
Those were the days! “Soylent Green”, “Silent Running”, and many others of that time were watched at the drive in.
But the Sunset Drive In was on land about 1/2 mile from the Pacific and would now be worth many millions of dollars. To use if for a parking lot half the year, well it doesn’t pencil out.
What with daylight savings time and an early feature Lawrence of Arabia went on forever – and all that dessert stuff just flat drove people to the snack bar. As to the demise of the drive in, I suspect it had more to do with the development of alternative places for a little intimacy and privacy than the price of land at the edge of town or VCs.
There are a couple in my area that are packed most nights they are open. They also have flea markets there to make extra money. They seem to do good.
Two drive in theaters are in operation in western NY.
The Vintage Drive In in East Avon, NY features 3 screens. It is a modern drive-in built around 15 years ago.
Silver Lake Drive-In is an older drive-in theater located near Perry, NY.
Here is a list of open drive-ins. While looking for it, I ran across this page about Alabama drive-ins. What’s interesting is that it charts the number over the years:
1948 13
1954 93
1958 96
1963 75
1967 69
1972 72
1977 55
1982 26
1987 6
1999 9
That’s only for Alabama but I suspect the numbers are similar nationwide. Betamax came out in 1975, then VHS in 1977 and may have been the nail in the coffin by 1982, but from the 50s to 77 there was already a large decline.
Oh, you have to see it! The Fred Astaire/Raymond Massey love scene alone is worth the price of admission, but you can’t miss the part where Elizabeth Taylor sprouts wings and I’ve gone completely insane.
My WAG (as a former theater employee) is that several different forces combined:
- The rise of multiplexes.
- Less second-run movies. For first run movies, the studios and distributors take nearly all of the ticket sales. On second runs, the theaters were allowed to keep more of the gate.
- Change in economic model of the theater business: as studios made more movies with shorter cycles, theaters had to depend on concessions to stay in business. This is why today prices are double or triple for snacks at theaters, and many smaller multiplexes have closed.
- Along with #3, it no longer mattered how many people came to see a movie, all that mattered is how many times you could show the film in a day, because pretty much everybody only makes one trip to concessions, so to increase revenue, you needed cycles of people going to concessions rather that actually watching the movie. A regular multiplex could show 5-10 90 minute films maybe 10 times each in a single day, meaning exponentially more concession revenue as a drive in that could only show movies 2-3 movies maybe 1-2 times from 7pm-11pm or so.
And you are ignoring the rise of home video and big screen TV?
Interesting, you remembering the movies you used to watch. All I can remember is the jingle, ♫"Let’s All Go to the Lobby! ♪ ♫ And, “Thursday is Red’s Tamale Day!” Ahh… Still good memories…
DST was firmly entrenched after WWII and the 1950s were the heyday of drive-ins, so it definitely wasn’t that. Along with what others have said:
[ul]
[li]Drive-ins only make so much money for a fairly large acreage[/li][li]Except in the southwest they can only operate from May to September[/li][li]Home video[/li][/ul]
But I would say the main cause is that America has just outgrown them. Drive-ins have two primary demographics: Family night out for the kids (candy, movie & camping all in one!) and teenagers date night. Both of these still exist. I live near Poughkeepsie NY and we still have **two **open & active drive-ins. And up until the early 90s we actually had four! But these markets have diversified and shrunk. Other than little ones kids are not so easily entertained these days (movies on their smartphones). And now instead of just grinding out low-budget schlock teen date movies on the cheap, Hollywood spends hundreds of millions on teen movies with mega-SFX that drive-ins can’t even come close to doing justice.
Essentially they’re just from a simpler, by-gone era. Like Sunday drives and teens getting together and playing records.