Bluffers guide: Is the drive-in making a comeback?
Drive-ins are getting a lot of attention. With cinemas closed during the pandemic, drive-ins that have stayed open around the world have been doing well. And it makes sense: you’re out watching a movie but you’re also socially isolating in your car. The Yatala Drive-In in south-east Queensland was the first cinema in this country to re-open with strict social distance measures this month and it was an immediate success.
Dirty Dancing, starring Patrick Swayze and Jennifer Grey, is screening at a drive-in at Moore Park.
And they seem to be opening in Sydney. While cinemas are still closed until July, there are two pop-up drive-ins opening with retro programs rather than new releases. Mov’in Car Outdoor Car Cinema starts a season with Dirty Dancing in the rooftop car park of Moore Park’s Entertainment Quarter next week. Fairfield City mayor Frank Carbone has organised another one at Fairfield Showground soon. And for a musical variation, Casey Donovan sang at “Australia’s first drive-in concert” at a carpark in Tempe last week.
They seem like such a fun way to watch movies. Why did they disappear? From the ’60s to the early ’80s, Skyline drive-ins were part of postwar prosperity in Sydney. There were sites at Frenchs Forest, Dundas, Chullora, North Ryde, Liverpool, Warriewood, Caringbah, Fairfield, Matraville, Parklea, Bass Hill, Penrith and Blacktown. But gradually the lustre wore off as colour TV, videos and clubs showing movies became more popular, random breath testing started and smaller cars with stick shifts, bucket seats and headrests became more popular – making comfortable viewing harder. As the land became more valuable, drive-ins were sold off for development. Chullora and Bass Hill made way for shopping centres, Parklea for markets, Dundas and Matraville for medium-density housing. The last one standing, Event Cinemas’ Skyline Drive-In at Blacktown, has been closed during the pandemic.
There’s a lot of nostalgia around them. Were they as good as everyone remembers? Well they had a lot going for them. Great for young couples wanting to get close. Great for parents with kids who could wear their pyjamas and fall asleep before the movie finished. Great if you like to talk or smoke during a movie. Great if you like two movies for the price of one. Great for a different kind of movie experience. People really did regularly try to sneak in so ticket-sellers would cast an eye over the back seat and check for a low hanging boot and telltale fingermarks. And when the movie finished, staff knew that someone was always bound to have fallen asleep, someone else will need a jump start and at least one couple would not have realised the movie had finished.
But ... They were always stronger on atmospherics than sound and picture quality. The food was more bowling alley standard than fine dining: steak sandwiches, chicken burgers, Pluto pups and donuts. In winter, it always seemed like a long cold walk to buy a drink or go to the toilet. And when it was cold and misty, you had to turn on the engine to run the demister or get out to wipe the windscreen. And there always seemed to be a crush to get out after the movie.
I guess you can’t drink alcohol like you can in a cinema now if you’re driving. Yes, you need a designated driver.
Surely it would make sense to open some new drive-ins, maybe using other carparks, industrial sites, sports fields or even racecourses that don’t get used at night? You would think there would be interest if they could screen new releases, especially in summer. But maybe open-air cinemas win out for comfort, atmosphere and quality food.
Will Skyline Blacktown get a boost when it reopens? “The drive-in has always traded well,” Event’s director of entertainment Luke Mackey says. “We’ll see a resurgence for sure.”
Does Event have any plans for any others? “I’m a commercial man who loves anything that helps cinemas grow,” Mackey says. “We’ll always look at opportunities.” But, he quickly adds, there are no plans.
So the comeback is probably a novelty? While drive-in concerts and retro screenings should be popular as the nation emerges from lockdown, if the country’s biggest cinema chain isn’t buying in, sadly it looks like it.