Ok, an opportunity has come my way from an investor I have done previous projects for. He has been offered the land across from a Hotel we are doing, for a song, it's zoned commercial so he can't build any housing. He asked me what I would build and I suggested a Drive-In Movie Theater....He loved it, so now I have to begin the research, anybody in here have any experience with Theaters in general and/ or a Drive-In's?

i goto drive ins all the time... they are awesome.... look up cascade in west chicago il

I think Digital Projection makes projectors for this type of application. The rest is a big flat smooth wall and imagine an outdoor 7.1 system :>)

This sounds like a great nostalgic idea for burning through some money.

Another positive is we are located is Southern Arizona, so we can be open year round. We have discussed a stage area in front of one of the screens for bands to play occasionally..

How many shows can you run in a day?

I'm looking at the area on Google Earth now, I'm thinking 2 screens on either side of the road.

one projection room for both screens... keep mechanicals easy.... one room part projects forward the other to the back... under the projection room is plenty of washrooms and a food court.

Yup

Wanna make a million in the Movie business....

Start with two million

For audio, just broadcast through an app that people can Bluetooth to their car's audio system. How about a screen on each corner, give people a choice of movies, charge extra if they want to be able to listen to different streams, kids can watch a kid movie on earbuds, dads get porn, moms get rom coms.

Go rear projection, build structures behind the screens, more resistant to light and insects projecting on the screen, rain won't be an issue.

Use the app so people can order food.

Run the whole thing with a small matrix or HDMI over IP. Small enough to cheaply have redundancy.

You ARE going to grade the hell out of the lot so every car is looking upward toward the screens, right?

There are distribution systems for gyms that use FM frequencies. Look into those for getting the audio out.

Would it be cheaper or easier to build one screen structure with a screen on both sides, and two projection buildings, or one projection building and two screen structures?

Look into old drive-ins in the area and note how the screens were oriented. There might be seasonal winds that could blow down a screen.

Note that a screen that faces west won't be able to start projection as early as one facing east, and it's unreasonably late in midsummer. My kids were very young and had a hard time being silent in the movies when ET came out, so we got in the habit of going to the drive-in. But I have yet to actually SEE the first fifteen minutes of ET because the movie was way darker than the western sky!

By the way, the first drive-ins we went to had those horrid speakers that hung on the driver's window. Bleccchhh. Later, several drive-ins used the hot of the speaker wire (I'm assuming) to get an AM signal to each car. You'd clip a wire onto your antenna to get the "station." This is more feasible if you're starting from scratch, since you can put in the right kind of wire and distribution system.

I can help with the FM distribution design if you need it. I've done three systems in the past that supplied signal to 400 TVs plus 60 FM receivers.

BINGO!


Yup. However, once you have that million, after you go out of the movie business you can use 25% of the million to remove all the poles, do whatever is necessary to reduce wind danger on the screens as they deteriorate, and hold swap meets on the grounds. At this point the graded ground will be an irritation, but hey, you tried!

Another reason to have two screens instead of one structure with a screen on each side is that the back side of one screen, if placed near the road, can provide a HUMONGOUS sign announcing the drive-in. The picture below shows one such screen and sign just before being torn down. You can see side extensions, probably additions from the days when wide screen movies were introduced.

That's the same thing I said about "Gold Rush" after a couple of seasons!!

Projector? That's so retro. Use a large LED array (less issues with approaching dusk) using WiFi and Bluetooth for the audio. Everyone can bring their own audio App. Phone/Pad's don't sound much worse than those hang on the window speakers and there is opportunity for improvement. (perhaps using earbuds or portable speaker)

This gives the teen multiple vectors to attract attention -- fast, loud car by day and turbo sound by night. The guy with the big subwoofer can impress nearby girls. Maybe there will be a type of tailgate party clustered around a big subwoofer vehicle. However, there will be be a problem synchronizing dozens and dozens of nearby and not so nearby subwoofers.

Projection on this scale is perfect for curved screens, but video panels are the way to go- the resolution is much better than it was and they're less money.

Seth- are you based in PHX? If so, call Clear Wing- they sell video panels and will probably have FM transmitters. If not, they can likely get them. Their home office is in Milwaukee and they provide sound/video for Summerfest (huge, 10 day music festival)- they found that they do so many shows in PHX that they bought another company out there and expanded it. They sell to dealers, too. The video walls they sell are made of small panels that are modular and can be replaced individually, if needed. The size can be whatever someone wants and if they want to start small and grow it as they see more revenue, it's easy enough.