Author Archives: mrdrivein

Blue Grass Drive-In gets okay to build

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It’s been a long time since we wrote about Randy Lorenz, who wants to build a drive-in theater in Blue Grass IA. Back in January, I thought that his ideas sounded nebulous and speculative. Shows what I know. This week, the Blue Grass city council unanimously approved the drive-in, and Lorenz hopes to open it in April 2014.

According to Quad-Cities Online, Lorenz plans to start with two screens with the possibility of expanding to four. The site will include a play area for children and eventually mini-golf. “We have been working on this for six years. We are happy they’ve finally found a home for us,” he said.

There’s also more on the story from WHBF, the Quad Cities’ news leader. In the Worldnow-hosted video delicately embedded here, Lorenz talks about letting patrons text in their concession stand orders. You’ll also get to see glimpses of the drive-in’s layout and map, plus a look at the simple farmland it is now.

For the drive-ins that can swing the digital conversion, a boom time is coming soon. Looks like the Blue Grass is going to be another example on that leading edge.

Two NY drive-ins face uncertain off-season

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photo by arwcheek, used by permission

photo by arwcheek, used by permission

The Daily Mail of Hudson NY recently ran a lengthy, thoughtful article profiling its two nearby drive-in theaters. The Hi-Way (Coxsackie) and Greenville (Greenville) were candidates in Honda’s Project Drive-In, and they were among the over 100 drive-ins that failed to win a free digital projector. Both owners sound ambivalently positive about their prospects for reopening next spring.

Roger Babcock, owner of the Hi-Way, is looking at spending $300,000 to convert his four-screen drive-in to digital. He told The Daily Mail that his bank has approved a loan for that amount, but he hasn’t decided whether to go through with it. Part of the question is when film will no longer be available, really. Babcock said that Fox once announced it wouldn’t produce 35mm copies of its films after September 2012. “And yet I played an awful lot of Fox films this year in 35mm,” he said. “So even though they’re giving us deadlines, they’re not holding to them. A lot of drive-ins are going to hold right out to the absolute end.”

Ed Spannagel, operator of the Greenville, only has one screen and hopes to raise $80,000 for conversion. He’s got also got a Plan B that matches an idea I had – stay with film. “The good news is those 35mm films are still there,” Spannagel said. “So as long as we’re still able to get access to them, technically speaking, we could still run older films next year once 35 is done being produced.”

But a different drive-in operator once told me that this idea of Spannagel’s and mine won’t necessarily work. There aren’t that many film copies of older movies, and the studios aren’t going to make new prints. Each showing of a film is a slightly destructive process, which I used to appreciate when I’d see the accumulated dirt and scratches on a months-old print at a second-run theater. Finally, there’s a question whether the studios are going to be willing to set a fair price on the license to show that movie. So I hope that Spannagel is right, but I’m no longer so optimistic about that particular Plan B.

Anyway, there’s a whole lot more detail and interesting quotes in The Daily Mail’s article, so you really ought to go read it!

Tiny drive-in scores a digital projector

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Link to video about Australia's Jericho Drive-InHere’s a wonderful little story from ABC, the Australian Broadcast Corporation. The tiny Queensland town of Jericho (population 370) has an even tinier drive-in (36 cars), which has stayed in operation since 1969. Like drive-ins everywhere, it needed to upgrade to a digital projection system to continue showing Hollywood’s finest films. Unlike most other drive-ins, the Jericho got its town council and state government to chip in, and it’s doing great with the new equipment.

I just love what Queensland Minister for Local Government David Crisafulli said about the importance of keeping the drive-in alive. “It stacks up not just from a tourism point of view to have something like this in western Queensland,” Crisafulli said, “but for what it does for the social infrastructure of this town. It’s a point of difference. Not only can they market that to their economic advantage, but also they can proudly say they’re a town where people still matter.”

The only downside of the ABC’s video report is that I can’t embed it here. To see what a tiny Australian drive-in looks like, you’ll have to give it a click!