Pop Up Drive In Theatres

[runestar]

I'm actually surprised there aren't more of these. I only know of one in Southern California. Maybe there are more that I just don't know about. But like most business ideas, it seems easy until you start breaking down the ancillary requirements.

Although here in So Cal, I kind of understand, we are uniquely litigious and real estate is very expensive. But I'm curious if anyone on here is doing it, or done any research on it. If so, how do you deal with these challenges.

a) The aforementioned real estate. Sites that usually have pumpkin patches and Christmas Tree lots or carnivals would be great spots. There are plenty around, but getting permission at a reasonable price could be a trick.

b) The also aforementioned legal BS. An LLC or S Corp is a given. But no doubt there are contracts and user agreements with landlords, also protocols with employees, customers, and owners of the intellectual property of the films you would be presenting, etc. Bonding? Local regulations and inspections, etc.

c) Start up costs. Considering a and b, equipment cost would be almost negligible, although could run around 5-10k depending on how you go about it. Projectors, FM Radio transmitter, safety lights, porta poties, etc etc.

Just off the top of my head, I'm guessing it may cost up to 100k to get it started. I think these days you could get away with charging something similar to what they charged at a real movie theater pre pandemic. So assume you could project your average order value that way. So if you could accommodate 300 people per viewing @ $20 average x 3 viewings per week would gross $18,000/wk.

If someone has ways around some of the costs like real estate, legal, and labor, this could be a good gig.

 

[rubiesandpearls]

@runestar I had a friend run a film series and licensing current movies was only like $150 to $300 per screen per day for his venue.

But you are grossly underestimating equipment cost... which for exterior-daylight-large screen goes about $500 to $1500 per square foot of screen.

There aren't many of these because there literally isn't the equipment to do it in most markets.

You can probably do small group patio screenings on stackable projectors on a portable Da-lite screen for under $10K used... Those projectors could maybe handle a drive-in sized screen at night... normal theatrical projectors are in the $50K-$100K range.

You will need backups... I've had projector bulbs blow their assembly apart when they go out.

 

[runestar]

@rubiesandpearls Good to know. I'm also not sure what you would construct the screen from. Most people don't know this but we get hurricane like winds in So Cal sometimes. A screen would need to be super strong.

 

[steve109]

@runestar You're forgetting about getting the rights to charge for showings of whatever you're going to play.

 

[runestar]

@steve109 I had that under b) but yea. Its for sure a thing. A lot of distributors would refuse to work with you so you probably would not be able to run new AA titles.

 

[rascoeb]

@runestar A few popped up during the pandemic. They did not show new movies, probably to cut down on cost. Unfortunately, the weather got poor, and they shut down.