There’s a short video update on the Harvest Moon Drive-In (Gibson City IL), previously chronicled here. WMBD, central Illinois’ new leader, said a couple of weeks ago that the Harvest Moon’s fundraiser has “been successful so far” but needs another $14,000 by the middle of February. When what happens, exactly? I don’t know, especially since the donation page talks about the end of January.

So go watch the video (sorry I can’t embed it) and check out the donation incentives that are available. Good luck, Harvest Moon!

From the St. Charles (IL) Patch comes word that the Cascade Drive-In (West Chicago) tried a Kickstarter campaign to help finance its conversion to digital projection. That seems to be the Illinois thing to do, as shown by the Midway (Palmyra), the Harvest Moon (Gibson City) and the McHenry Outdoor Theater (McHenry).

The article makes the Cascade sound much more optimistic that some of the others. It says its owner “has been in the drive-in theater business all his life and has no plans to close.” It also suggests that he hoped Kickstarter would prevent him from having to borrow to finance the new equipment. Unfortunately, that campaign ended last week with only $1248 pledged toward the $100,000 goal.

Clicking around on Kickstarter, I see that the Harvest Moon campaign also failed ($49,449/$120,000), as did Midway‘s ($7536/$40,000). With only a few weeks until its Nov. 28 close, the McHenry campaign is also in trouble ($27,143/$130,000).

I’ve seen Kickstarter projects work, though for smaller amounts. Wired has a nice primer on how to run one. Adapting its advice to drive-ins, I would add that a theater needs to offer something tangible and valuable for donors. Maybe give two free tickets in exchange for a $25 pledge, or a Carload for $50. I also would amplify Wired’s last idea: Facebook. There are a lot of drive-in patrons (and a lot of drive-ins) on Facebook, and a good appeal there can ripple out to bring in more fans who might become donors if the appeal and the deal are good enough. Want to give it another try?

The odd saga of the Peoria IL drive-in that was set up in the parking lot of an indoor movie theater has taken another positive turn. CentralIllinoisProud.com reports that the Peoria Zoning Commission has approved a permit to allow the drive-in to take up permanent residence there.

The commission suggested that the site improve its landscaping and upgrade the parking lot, which seems pretty obvious to me. I also dug up this story, from the August 16 edition of the Peoria JournalStar, which explains what they’ve got in mind. Landmark Theaters general manager Zach Washburn said, “We want people to come up early, pull out their lawn chairs, throw the frisbee, bring their kids out and introduce them to something that across the country for years now has been dying.” I like the idea, but make sure those lawn chairs don’t take up an extra parking space, okay?

And I also found the JS article about the Landmark Drive-In’s opening day, complete with a few photos and a map showing where it is. Enjoy!