Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Drive-In Matinee

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Posted by Dave Bird (Member # 490) on 11-09-2018, 10:05 AM:

The stars finally lined up and we got to run the mythical Drive-In Matinee this past Sunday at 5pm, possible after the time change. We decorated the place for Christmas and ran Elf with Christmas Vacation all weekend (Saturday bonus: Die Hard). Latest we've ever been open and we were trying to bridge the gap until Grinch (alas, was not to be, they wanted 3 weeks, too much when the snow flurries are already making an appearance here). Anyway, we had a great weekend, families were delighted with the Sunday afternoon special, and we're claiming the unofficial world matinee record of somewhere between 150-175 people (we ran "Carload" pricing for Sunday). That record will be broken this weekend, as our booker who has some large city drive-ins is going to try it. Shame we couldn't get Grinch, I was going to expand on the theme by running a Saturday afternoon Single-Feature followed by the double in the evening.

Posted by Barry Floyd (Member # 385) on 11-14-2018, 11:52 AM:

Dave,
We tried that "Sunday matinee" thing several years ago. We did "OK" with it, but not enough to make it a regular thing. At our place, we typically have a kid movie, followed by a more "grown up" feature. We would play the "kid movie at 5:00 p.m., the "grown up" feature at 7:00p.m.+/-, then repeat the kid feature again at 9:15p.m. +/-.

For the families with little kids who never stay for the second feature anyway, it made sense and worked well, however not enough of them came to justify the expense of payroll.

We're playing Elf with Christmas Vacation the weekend of the 30th for our final weekend of the season.

Posted by Rick Cohen (Member # 6140) on 01-02-2019, 01:48 PM:

When we opened Star Wars The Force Awakens back in 2015, we had it showing on all four screens, with showtimes at 5:00, 6:00, 7:00, 8:00 and 9:00. Not something I would do on a regular basis , but this was a $250 million opening, so it was worthwhile.