Cinema Under the Stars

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Relying on nostalgia is not the only marketing strategy, though, as 30-year-old Ryan Smith, a law student turned drive-in entrepreneur, admonishes. “Do you go to a baseball game because it’s nostalgic and because it’s America’s pastime? No. You go because you love the team or it’s exciting or it’s something to do with friends.” His Stars and Stripes Drive-In, a new three-screen that opened in 2003 outside Lubbock, Texas, is exemplary of a state showing strong drive-in growth. His theater—which screens double features to a total capacity of 1,000 cars—could never survive simply as a tourist niche. “I hope we’re in the very beginning of an upswing,” Smith adds, “because I certainly don’t want to be in a dying industry.”

While conditions may never again converge to bring drive-ins back to their glory days, owners like Smith are lending the business some new cachet and ensuring its survival through another generation. “I like the indoor theaters, but it took one time going to the Sky-Vue and I was hooked,” Smith says of his grand­father’s theater, which dates to 1948. “I thought to myself, ‘This is the way to watch a movie.’ I was watching Signs on a summer night. With the clear sky, I could see all the stars. It was like I was waiting on the aliens to invade. I thought, ‘Man, this is too cool.’ ”

Adapted from an article in the Next American City(Summer 2007). Subscriptions: $29/yr. (4 issues) from 1315 Walnut St., Suite 902, Philadelphia, PA 19107; americancity.org.

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