They’re too busy following up on all those complaints about dogs and babies on tables.
There’s a drive-in about an hour from where I live. My wife and I went a couple of summers ago to see a double feature of GI Joe and Inglourious Basterds, and packed a picnic.
It started raining during the last half of Basterds, which could have ruined the evening, but actually made for a pretty cool viewing experience. The rain streaming down, the wind howling and the thunder clapping actually worked to intensify the drama during the climactic scene.
There are four within driving distance of the island of Montreal, all closed for the winter. I think I’ll check them out next summer.
My bad - NE it is.
I’ve been confused ever since I moved to California where away from the ocean is East and not West like it is in civilized locations. Coming from Princeton, before they finished 95. I always thought of it as US 1 and not the local name. Same place, definitely.
This brings back a lot of memories. The first movie I can remember seeing is Dark Star (though surely it wasn’t really my first movie), at a drive-in with my parents. Sadly that drive-in is long gone. It was a great experience going there though.
We still have one in Colchester VT - The Sunset. Directly across from where I work. Still pretty popular; 3 screens, new release movies. Nice to see there are still quite a few around.
There are a couple in Central PA that are only open during the spring, summer, and early fall. They have rocks to climb on and a swingset, and people will bring a ball to toss around before the show starts to keep the kids busy. We usually go a few times a year.
Pretty much all of the above… the cool thing at the Butch Cassidy/Sundance Kid drive in is that they have two first run screens (back to back, opposable) with double features on each. So it is usually the four most “popular or marketed” movies at any given time. They have decent dogs and “homemade” pizza with a pizza oven there. The pizza could be better, but it lived up to my expectations for the area (canned sauce and industrial crusts). Apparently at one time or perhaps during peak summer vending times they have funnelcakes, corndogs, and “carnival items”. The biggest feature seemed to be the self serve “buttering stations” for popcorn that they had… handy push-button automated Popcorn greasers… not real butter… but popcorn butter that has been sitting in a warming bin for god knows how long in a butter flavring and palmoil dispensing robot… mmm… a buffet of popcorn butter and seasoning salts.
I’ve never been to a drive-in so I’m a bit puzzled about one aspect of them. What I don’t understand is how anyone but those in the front seat can see the screen. If you don’t park backwards or have a pick-up truck, how do you see the screen from the back? Or are you just expected to be outside the car or squeezed in the front?
So many people mention whole families attending in one car and I just can’t figure out how it works.
There are two drive-in theaters in the town I grew up in, and they’re still operating. Even though the late-evening fog frequently obscures the second feature. 
One thing the OP should understand is that–even though there’s still an audience for the few drive-in movie theaters still left–the lots upon which they stood naturally took up A LOT of square feet. As the suburban communities in which they typically were built grew, became denser, and built up surrounding the drive-in lots, those huge lots gradually became extremely valuable property for the typical owner: usually an individual or family independent operator. Really, the offers they got to sell their land for shopping malls or condominiums were too good to pass up, so the vast majority have closed down. It wasn’t because of a decline in demand or change of movie-going habits, but rather simple property-value market forces. There are some that have closed for other reasons, and for whatever reason are actually still undeveloped. They often are used for swap meets, etc.
I have some relatives, second cousins I believe, who own and operate their families drive-in. I must have seen hundreds of movies there over the years. There were several more in the surrounding area, but I don’t think any are still around.
A little google-fu shows that there used to be 18 within 30 miles, now just 4 remain.
We used to put a couch in the back of the pick up and park sideways. Lotsa beer too, on a summer night. Drive ins are awesome.
Can someone explain to me how the FM sound thing works?
I always had the image of those big headphones you had to install into your car. So, now the sound comes through your radio system. But how does that work? I thought FM frequencies were all taken by radios and that they were very valuable. How could you have a free slot just for a local drive-in? Especially if you’re not in a rural area.
It’s a low power FM transmitter, probably located in the center of the drive in. It’s effective, like, literally, a few hundred feet. When you get there, they say “tune to 89.1” or something, and there’s the sound on your car stereo. One of the problems is that people worry about their batteries and between movies everyone starts their cars and the place gets all exhausty.
And no, not all FM channels are taken in every location, although in a big city most are.
The gym I go to has a tiny fm xmitter on each TV, so if you’re on the treadmill you can tune your FM radio into whichever TV you’re watching. Those are probably good for 30 feet or so and that’s it.
When I went, most people sat outside their cars on folding chairs and I think every car was parked backwards.
Maybe people parked their cars “backwards” or backed in if they were sitting outside and wanted to ensure easy egress. It can be something of a traffic jam when everybody leaves all at once after the movies and can take a while to get on the highway.
At least around here I see surprisingly few people sitting outside their vehicles to watch the movie. No cars parked backwards, just vehicles with open beds or back doors that can be opened with back seats collapsed (parking a regular car backwards would just ruin everybody’s view). This may be because most of the time the best viewing area is actually pretty full of cars and so sitting in a chair would mean being down in the dips between rows and possibly not a great view.
That raises the big vehicle issue. I’ve had to move several times when we’d park and then on the next slot in front of us would be some giant SUV that would stick its ass up in the air as high as possible, open the back door making it even taller and then maybe put some kids up on the roof. Worse than an Easter hat at the movie theater.
My recollection of going to the drive-in when I was a kid was simply that we kids sat in the back and were told to suck it up if we didn’t like the diminished view (my second recollection is that generally we fell asleep long before the movie was over anyway).
Yep. I remember once going to the drive-in when I was a teen and leaving the car stereo on as I was leaving (the end credits were still rolling) just to see how far their signal traveled. It lasted maybe about a quarter-mile, if that.
When the family car was a station wagon, during nice weather Dad would lower the tailgate window so at least two of us could use it as a seat.