For one night, Thursday, September 26, the West Wind 6 (Sacramento CA) will offer a free movie night, according to the Rosemont Patch. It’s Superhero night, and the movies scheduled are Brave, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Amazing Spider-Man. (Wait, Brave is a superhero movie?)
Based on tonight’s schedule (same movies) at the Glendale 9 (Glendale AZ), and considering it’s also a West Wind drive-in, it sounds like they might be holding a free movie night too. Give them a call and check it out!
From The Baltimore Sun comes the story of Bengies Drive-In (Baltimore MD). It seems that the 56-year-old theater was doing fine until a Royal Farms convenience and grocery store opened nearby, and its lights began to interfere with folks trying to watch the movie. The owner of Bengies sued Royal Farms, and earlier this year, a jury awarded him $838,000, an amount based on what it would cost to erect a 25-foot-high light-blocking stone wall.
But on September 13, a circuit court judge set aside that award, saying that Bengies hadn’t proved that Royal Farms’ light interfered with the operation of the drive-in. Now Bengies is appealing that ruling, adding that it is delaying adding a second screen or digital projection equipment until this is settled. Let’s hope the appeals court gets it right this time!
From The News-Gazette of central Illinois comes word that two other Illinois theaters have also turned to Kickstarter to try to raise money for the digital conversion. In addition to the Midway, which we covered a few days ago, the Harvest Moon (Gibson City IL) and the indoor Onarga Theater (Onarga IL) have started these campaigns to get the new equipment to keep showing movies next year.
And mentioning that indoor cinema brings us around to the wider scope of the conversion issue. One article suggests that next year the US may lose 20% of its movie theaters, mostly in small towns. That’s worse for drive-ins; I would be surprised if there are even two-thirds as many drive-ins operating in July 2013 as there were in July 2012. The final result may be half, or worse.
If you want your nearby drive-ins to survive, see if they’re trying to raise money. It could be Kickstarter, or it could be different, such as Save the Star (Montrose CO). If so, donate to keep them alive. This spring, you don’t want to be surprised by a dead drive-in.