Drive-ins thrive as blockbusters, DVDs flourish
Theaters defy pressure from real estate values, changing market
The Daily Mail
June 13, 2009

GREENE COUNTY — Residents of Greenville can enjoy an evening movie under the stars once again now that the Greenville Drive-In has reopened.

The theater was closed in 2007.

The theater’s new manager, Don Brown and concessions manager Patricia Creigh bring with them years of experience from running a theater in Delaware. That theater closed in 2008, allowing the pair to look for a change of scenery.

Brown said he started working with owner Mark Wilcox to manage the theater on Route 32, in Greenville, and reopened the theater earlier this month.

Creigh now serves up snacks including popcorn and candy but nachos, fries and hot dogs, as well.

Brown warns that although the box office opens at 7 p.m., movies may not begin until shortly before 9 p.m., or when the sky darkens.

Patrons familiar with the drive-in may notice that the theater has a new steel screen.

He said that already patrons who have come to the theater for the last 50 years have come to thank him for reopening.

Brown said he has known many drive-in theaters to close in the recent years due to a rise in property taxes, which made running a theater or a theater chain less efficient than it once was.

“It just wasn’t as viable,” he said. “The market was over-saturated.”

The United Drive-In Theater Owners Association boasts a membership of 178 drive-in theater operators for the 2008-2009 year.

Association members operate 151 theaters in 40 American states and territories, including 14 in New York State, and run a total of 300 drive-in screens. The Association has more than 30 corporate partners, according to its Web site.

Brown has already lined up showings of new movies at the theater all summer long.

This weekend, movie-goers can catch “Up” and “Angels and Demons.” In the coming weeks, Brown will screen ”Ice Age 3” and “Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince.”

“Up” and “Angels and Demons,” along with “Pelham 123,” “The Hangover,” “Terminator Salvation,” “Star Trek,” “A Night at the Museum 2” and “Land of the Lost,” will play at the Hi-Way Drive-In, on Route 9W, in Coxsackie, this weekend.

Roger Babcock, who has owned and run the theater since the 1970s, will begin screening films on a nightly basis beginning on Fri. June 12.

He is also working on adding a fourth screen to the complex, which will allow him to keep showing more films for a longer period of time.

He explained that, for example, 98 percent of ticket sales and tax during the for the movie “Spider-Man 3” during its first week run went to the production company and only a small amount of revenue came into the theater.

After the first week, cuts to production companies decrease, so the longer a movie stays in a theater, the more money a theater can make, he said.

He said most theater revenue comes in through concession stand sales.

His concession stand offers customers snacks as well as fries, Philly cheese steak and pulled pork sandwiches and chicken fingers, among other food. He is adding ice cream cones and sundaes to the menu this summer.

Babcock said his movies draw a wide range in customers, spanning from die-hard drive-in fans of the Baby Boomer generation to children, in to see kid-friendly films.

Now that theaters broadcast sound over radio frequencies, rather than through the small, tinny speakers of the past, families can settle into their cars, babies, pets and all.

“It’s just like sitting in your home theater except you are in your little car,” Babcock said.

Other changes to the complex include a new women’s bathroom and a handicapped-accessible bathroom.

More renovations in the complex are planned, he said.

Neither Babcock nor Brown are worried about their theaters competing with each other’s, they said. Babcock said he had a friendly relationship with Mark Wilcox and his family when they ran the theater. He said he expected that moviegoers will give the new management of the Greenville Drive-In a chance.

Don Brown said the Greenville Drive-In will continue to attract residents and visitors in the area.

Greene County, he said, still has a sort of road-side culture to support drive-in theaters.

The skyline shows trees and mountains, he said, and lacks big-box stores and shopping centers.

“It is a beautiful area that has not been exploited,” he said. “It is not homogenized.”


For showtimes and more information about the Greenville Drive-In, please visit www.greenvilledrivein.com or call (518) 966-8500. The Hi-Way Drive-In can be reached at www.hiwaydrivein.com or (518) 731-8672.
Both theaters charge $8 for adult tickets and $3 for child tickets.