In yet another example of adaptation to trying to keep a small business going in the time of COVID, drive-in theaters are popping up in a lot of places. For those of us who grew up in the era, the idea was easy for families watching budgets. Pile everyone in the car, take your own snacks, ignore the kids asking for concessions and enjoy a movie together. I don’t recall all the movies we went to, but it was a fairly regular thing for us. And then there was the high school and college student part which included more than just watching the movie.

Anyway, there have been regular local festivals that featured a “movie in the park” element, but back in the summer, an entrepreneurial brother and sister were in town for college summer break. Their dad owns a large, empty lot and they decided to give the drive-in movie theater a try. As it turns out, when they calculated the cost of renting the screen and other equipment, they went on a search for used equipment instead. They found a pretty good price and figured they might be able to sell the set-up for a decent amount or not much loss. They were both due back at school in late August and so were doing this as both a way to offer entertainment that included social distancing and to see if it would work. I interviewed the brother and did a short piece for the paper. I even reached out to a couple of contacts to see if they might be interested in buying the equipment although their interest wasn’t enough to pursue it.

Someone else has recently started showing movies and I have an inquiry out to see if they either did buy the equipment or were simply inspired by the idea. I always enjoy that kind of connectivity.