We could think that the drive-in and open-air cinema is something relatively new, but nothing could be further from the truth. According to the history of open-air cinema in 1895, the Lumière brothers invented cinematography: the moving image. Drive in and open air cinema, At the beginning of the 20th century, these “living photographs” surprised people in large halls and traditional theaters. By 1907, the first mobile cinema came to life as a fun fairground attraction.
Traveling cinema in 1907
The oldest open-air cinema in the world can be found in Broome, Australia; and it is still working today. Since 1916, Sun Pictures Garden Cinema has shown outdoor films and they have a Guinness World Record for it.
The oldest open-air cinema in the world
The history of Sun Pictures in Broome, begins with the inauguration of a picture theater in 1916, throughout all these years there have been tidal floods during the films, the allocation of seats for reasons of race, a boycott in response to this segregation and a peculiar fact has been the interruption due to aircraft noise due to the proximity of the airport.
In 1933 the world’s first drive-in movie theater was opened near Camden, New Jersey. It was a concept developed by Richard Hollingshead Jr., who after experimenting with various projection and sound techniques in his driveway, used a 1928 Kodak projector mounted on the hood of his car and pointed at a screen fixed to some trees. Hollingshead managed to calculate the spacing logistics to make sure all cars had a proper view of the screen. Drive in and open air cinema, Thanks to all this, he received a patent in May 1933 and opened his first drive-in movie just three weeks after that.
Drive in and open air cinema
The world’s first drive-in movie theater in the US
The drive-in offered cheap family entertainment, a place where parents could take their kids without paying for a babysitter, or worry about little ones bothering other customers, this is still a huge plus today !! This has actually been a huge draw of Hollingshead’s original idea: “The whole family is welcome, no matter how noisy the kids are.” So they quickly spread across the United States. The peak popularity of the drive-in was from the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, when about 5,000 theaters operated in the United States.
Soon not only were Americans enjoying drive-in cinema, Europeans joined in, with a very good acceptance. The first drive-in theater in Europe is in Frankfurt and is still running today.
Günter Ganzevoort in 1994, invented the world’s first inflatable movie screen. In the 1990s, the inflatable screen came into action. The first prototype of the AIRSCREEN brand was designed in August 1994 by the German engineer Günter Ganzevoort. From that moment on, someone with an inflatable screen would turn any place into an outdoor cinema quickly, easily and inexpensively. Drive in and open air cinema, Incredibly, the idea of ​​using inflatable screens spread all over the world and without a doubt revolutionized the outdoor cinema market.
Such is the case of the center of Berlin that in 1998 had one of the first AIRSCREEN models ever built in front of the National Gallery
Obviously, the great advantage of the open-air cinema and drive-in cinema is that you can go practically anywhere in the world that offers us beautiful and unlimited scenarios to have a perfect movie night under the stars. And the one who offers us the fantastic technology of this screen for an outdoor cinematic experience is AIRSCREEN.
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If you wish to read more: Summer outdoor cinema in garden
