Social distancing is bringing drive-in theaters back to life | Hacker News Reader

Social distancing is bringing drive-in theaters back to life

atlasobscura.com

301 pointslukestateson208 comments

The drive-in theater near by me has not been allowed to be open. I don't think that is necessarily wrong, it's still too many people in one place.

There was an article two weeks ago that mentioned more drive-in's that would like to be open but were not being allowed to be than ones that were open. And that was a couple weeks ago.

I do think that after we have a handle on the pandemic (including observabiltiy from wide-scale quick-turn-around testing, although part of me thinks our country may be incapable of ever having that, which would be problematic, but anyway)-- anyway, when the curve has peaked, and we have observability we don't have now, which are the preconditions for gradually re-opening things -- at that point I do think it would make sense for drive-in's to be among the first things re-opened, they are relatively low-risk when it comes to gatherings of that size.

But for now, when the interviewer asks "Do you think this surge in attendance at drive-ins around the country…" -- I don't think the article actually has any evidence to support there IS a "surge in drive-ins around the country", they are just assuming it because they like the story? That's not good journalism. I think most drive-ins remain closed by public health order, possibly appropriately. I think the several stories about "the surge in attendance" are just based on the journalist's imagination extrapolating from one drive-in they found that is open, and are irresponsible.

I'm having a very difficult time imagining how a drive-in theater could regularly result in transmission of the virus. It's not inconceivable, but the goal of physical distancing is not to prevent every conceivable situation that could result in transmission, but the activities that would normally be responsible for the vast majority of transmission.

I suppose having the cars a little farther apart might be prudent.

At the one by me, people get out of their cars a lot. To go to the concession stand, bathroom, etc. To talk to their friends. Kids running around.

Closing the concession stand (which has indoor lines) would be the first obvious move, but the one by me makes a significant portion of it's profits from the concession stand, would probably have to raise prices non-trivially.

I agree about "Activities that would normally be responsible for transmission" -- and I think that is mostly _being near other people_. We need to be ruthlessly minimizing that. Depending on the drive-in, it may be not be doing so as much as you would imagine, is all.

Anyhow whether the health departments are right or wrong to not letting be open, I think the "surge in drive-in attendance nationally" may not actually be a thing.

The only way I'd see this working is if you aren't allowed to exit your car at all. Being a guy, I guess I could piss into a bottle ...

I dunno, this whole thing just doesn't sound that appealing. I'd rather just watch a movie for much cheaper from my couch. It'd be one thing if there were some new huge blockbuster movie I wanted to see that could only be seen in theaters, but that's flat-out not happening anymore. All the big releases are either pushed back indefinitely or happening on streaming services too.

Without getting into specifics, after-hours clubs that don't serve alcohol usually account for that with higher admission prices.

Aren't drive-in theaters generally cheaper than real theaters, though? Isn't that part of the point of them, that they're spartan and cost-effective to operate and thus are a most cost-effective option?

I don't know how much money people would be willing to pay to go to one.

Drive-ins have no less overhead. They require much more expensive D-Cinema projectors (for higher lumen output), more real estate, radio transmission equipment and all the same expenses as conventional theatres except potentially less manhours required to clean the 'auditoriums.' They are likely cheaper in your experience because drive-ins are almost exclusively independent and in rural areas.

The cheapness comes from the fact that they tend to charge by the car and not by the person.

Unless they charge $50+ per car, it's still a great deal for small families.

"more than they would be willing to pay if normal movie theaters were open" seems like the safe bet.

Or are members only like some in Chicago. But we definitely do not need to get into specifics.

Can I ask what kind of members-only clubs you're referring to that don't serve alcohol? That sounds curious. I do belong to a club or three here in the UK (internationally reciprocal, too) and while they can be rather selective and some do charge a pretty penny, they most certainly do have bars or a wine cellar with a respectable selection of beverages... Is there a meaning of "club" of which I'm not aware? Sorry if I'm being daft, it's been a long day.

https://smallbusiness.findlaw.com/business-laws-and-regulati...

> Topless clubs in Las Vegas may serve alcohol, for example, but fully nude clubs may not.

My (genuinely...) limited understanding is that this is not limited to Las Vegas, and also that private members-only clubs can circumvent this.

Have people text their orders to the stand, and have one person in a mask and gloves to deliver.

Or just charge cover/raise tix/charge a "corking fee" and allow people to bring their own

Pairing a drive-in with a drive-thru concessions seems like an obvious solution.

It reminds me of that video of cops arresting a jogger in Spain where the person recording the video and the Reddit comments all gleefully celebrate such justice.

As if trail joggers are a hotbed of infection.

https://en.as.com/en/2020/03/21/videos/1584804866_376286.htm...

The video kinda disgusted me, like zero tolerance laws that exist so nobody has to actually use their discretion about what's reasonable vs unreasonable.

It also creates this creepy culture of sit-at-your-window-and-tattle that just can't be worth it.

The complete stay at home order in both Italy and Spain came when the situation went out of hand. Especially in Italy, milder restrictions were not respected. It would be great if people complied with milder use-the-discretion restrictions, wore masks, did not went skiing everyone together and what not. And where people complied, the more strict measures don't seem to be necessary so far.

The problem with the discretion is that it works as long as it is not abused.

Even in countries where the situation has not got out of hand, you will still see plenty of nosiness and carping about other individuals going outside and doing exercise. Even if they are not able to call the local police and have the person stopped, they are still wont to rage about it online, and this has really poisoned the atmosphere on international fora for various hobbies.

For example, on cycling fora, people occasionally mention that they went riding, because in their country recreational cycling has not been limited by the authorities. But their posts immediately attract savage responses from people in countries with stricter lockdowns: “Stay home!”, “You are being so selfish!” “You are responsible for any deaths!!!”, etc.

I feel like some people have taken up "Stay home!" not as a rational piece of public-health advice which is interpreted differently from country to country, but rather as a meme mindlessly repeated, and they have become monsters to their peers because of it.

Apparently some doctors are indeed asking joggers not to jog.

I don't know whether there have been cases of transmission, but it seems clear that some people are not taking distance particularly seriously, and it's certainly not hard to imagine that people exercising are exhaling virus with more vigor.

How far do you have to be behind someone to account for your speed? How do you run past someone without some risk?

Our goal is not to eliminate all risk, only to reduce the risk significantly enough to lower the transmission rate of the virus below the threshold where it threatens to overwhelm healthcare capacity. Running with reasonable physical distance appears to be an extremely low risk activity.

The situation is different for high-risk groups or those who have to be in close contact with high risk individuals. They do want to try and get close to zero risk, but that's not most people.

It’s understandable, however, that a doctor watching his fellow health care providers die might ask people to stop unnecessary risks, regardless of their personal risk profile.

It is indeed understandable on an emotional level. That said, we don’t have to set policy based on a small number of objections. Instead, we can look at the big picture and choose to balance risks.

There is no such thing as completely risk free.

If we become too risk adverse, the rate of transmission slows to a trickle and our healthcare capacity goes unused while the virus waits in the wings. At that rate, we never get through this. Then it'll be quarantine until vaccine, which may or may not come in 12-18 months and may or may not be safe.

What's a hotbed of infection is the cops who interact with dozens of people a day to enforce distancing... seriously, it's super dangerous and they should not be doing it. Regardless of the morality or 'fairness' of it, it is just counter-productive, it is a vector for transmission, it will not work.

It is terrifying to me that many of us dont' seem to be able to distinguish between what people 'deserve' or what works; they'd rather increase disease risk if it means seeing the right people punished for it.

I don't know about you but if there were hundreds or more of people congregating I sure as hell want the cops to show up.

I don't think you read anything I wrote. It wasn't very long even. You certainly aren't responding to it if you did, you're having some other conversation.

His argument, if I understand him correctly, is that there is a threshold of event size where the risk of the event starts becoming greater than the risk from enforcement.

I don't remember much Spanish from high school, but I remember enough to know how fucked that situation is.

Here is a video of a bus rider being dragged off a Philadelphia bus.

https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/emmanuelfelton/philadel...

Realize that no one is wearing a mask; not the driver, the rider, nor the 10 cops who dragged him out. And they could have done like Detroit and just hand out masks to riders.

I’m glad the police are protecting essential workers, after a bus driver was killed, quite possibly by a passenger.

https://www.fox29.com/news/detroit-bus-driver-dies-of-covid-...

I'm not sure how I'm supposed to realize that when all the cops are clearly wearing masks.

That just goes to show how little it takes to slide into a dictatorship.

On the other hand, anyone who paid attention to the Catalunya situation in recent years or the high level of acceptance of Franco [1] wouldn't be too surprised at these reactions.

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/news/blog/2006/jul/18/post181

Are we watching the same video? I have zero sympathy for the jogger. The police isn't doing anything wrong, she's clearly resisting so they have no choice but to use strength to put her in the car. I don't see any mistreatment from the police.

And where's the supposed "abuse" from the onlookers? All I saw was the person filming telling her to shut up and stop resisting the police. All very reasonable things to say, regardless of whether the law is wrong or not.

Speaking about the law, "zero tolerance laws" have a very negative meaning because of the stupid laws they have in the USA. If there's a moment where you should apply a zero tolerance law, it's when there's a freaking pandemic and people disobey the rules.

One jogger isn't bad, how about 10 or 100?

The policy of not allowing outdoor exercise is to blame. The risk of transmission from running is minuscule if people keep proper physical distance. Doesn't matter if it's 10 or 100 or 1,000 people jogging. All that matters is if effective precautions are being taken to prevent transmission of the virus.

Instead of harassing people who are keeping proper physical distance, police should focus on activities that are actually likely to lead to transmission of the virus. People running in a group? Make them stop. People running with ample distance between themselves and others? Wave and say hi.

Part of the problem is determining the threshold and keeping the crowd size below it. If nobody else is at the basketball court then sure, it’s safe. But the basketball court is empty because a lot of people who would love to play are staying away and respecting the closure. Why shouldn’t they get to be the one person at it?

Some sort of queuing or permitting system could work in theory but it’d be difficult to enforce.

Unfortunately, the policy here in the bay area has been to entirely shut down some trails, while leaving others open, concentrating people into the few permitted locations.

The resources are clearly available to block off the trailhead parking, so they are also available to reduce the the same locations to 50% capacity instead.

Proper physical distance is quite far for joggers: https://www.fox13news.com/news/simulation-research-shows-cov...

The traditional WHO recommendation for avoiding droplet transmission is 3.5 feet (1 meter). In Australia, it's currently 5ft (1.5 meters). In many places, 6ft or 6.5ft (2 meters). The rate of transmission already drops dramatically if you maintain just a 1 meter distance from infected individuals. Two meters is even better, but we have always known that droplet transmission can go far beyond even 2 meters. One source I read claimed it's possible up to 20 meters.

But the difference between "possible" and "likely" is key. If we try to avoid every activity where there is a remote possibility of transmission, we will all have to sit in isolated cages. But avoiding "likely" transmission is easy. Keep a good distance, wash your hands, etc. It does not sound like this simulation has proven (or even suggested) that transmission at 65 feet is likely while running, only that it is possible.

The point is that the droplets persist in the air for a little bit, and the faster you're moving, the greater the likelihood that you're moving through a space that still has suspended droplets in the air. It's like how the faster you drive, the longer your stopping distance. Your safety distance increases the faster you're moving. Six feet is for when you (and everyone else) are stationary.

Running doesn’t (substantially, probably) increase the rate at which you shed the virus, though – so the droplets are spread over a larger area, at a lower concentration. You need to keep a greater distance to guarantee zero exposure, but that doesn’t mean that higher speeds equal greater risks. The car analogy is inappropriate.

On top of that, a moving source causes a slipstream that makes the droplets spread further.

Yup, and when running you're breathing deeper and more forcefully, so you're expelling more viral particles farther.

Plus, I'm not seeing as many runners wearing masks (no doubt because of the high oxygen requirements of the running itself), so that too has an effect.

This article has made the rounds but has yet to be peer reviewed. Tbh, journalists need to chill until better authorities like the WHO step in and recommend something.

"Oh, that is all well and good, but, voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country." [Göring]

The point is that the rule against jogging is stupid and counterproductive. Improving cardiovascular health has a protective effect against infections in general.

You can exercise indoors. It may not be as fun, but jogging isn't necessary for physical well-being.

The goal is practical and meaningful risk reduction, not elimination of all risk.

As such, the threshold for being able to do an activity is not whether it is necessary to sustain life.

I heard them call her gilipollas, idiota, payasa in response to her calling for help. [Feel free to Google those terms if anyone reading doesn't speak Spanish.] This is unnecessarily mean-spirited and doesn't fit this "we're all in this together" spirit I am so glad to see in other places.

The video clip doesn't show what happened before but I am sure a hefty fine would have done the trick.

PROTECT YOURSELF - why do you want the government to force people into this madness.

100 joggers far apart from each other, on miles and miles of trails, and perhaps with scarves or handkerchiefs, isn't bad.

They don't run at the same speed in the same direction. You will have people passing each other, and who knows how long it will stay afloat in the air over the trail.

Two runners 100ft apart same direction same speed (6mph) is only 11 seconds before the runner in the rear passes through the exhaled breath of the runner in front.

> the goal of physical distancing is not to prevent every conceivable situation that could result in transmission, but the activities that would normally be responsible for the vast majority of transmission

You'd never know this from some of the enforcement, behavior, and policies we're seeing.

Working from home, ~closing non-essential businesses, and social distancing appear to be incredibly effective. The rest is people desperately trying to control a situation they can't.

Well, I do agree with the argument that some countries make for banning everything but essential travel - driving around is not risk-free, because unless you have an electric car you will have to fill it up eventually, so there's one transmission vector at a petrol station, plus some people will have an accident, which takes away valuable resources to deal with those accidents. With that logic in mind, having drive-in theatres is not a good idea, even if the theatre itself is not a tranmission vector.

Right, if the goal is to prevent all transmission then we would need a much stricter set of protocols. But that is not and has never been the goal. Preventing the vast majority of transmissions is the goal, and we are achieving that with our current, imperfect implementation of physical distancing.

Several European countries are on the verge of easing restrictions and opening various shops and schools. They know full well that this will lead to an increased transmission rate. But as long as that rate is not too high, their healthcare systems will be able to handle the number of cases.

I would look at it this way - I've read several times that COVID is ten times as lethal as the flu; therefore it seems reasonable to me to take precautions that prevent 90% of cases and not worry about the remaining 10%.

another way to look at it that COVID has a R0 variously reported between 2 and 5. Taking the upper bound, if everyone reduced their pre-pandemic contact by 80% the virus will go into exponential decline.

I wonder. If I'm sat in my car with the air conditioning on, the car parked in front of me also has their air conditioning on. If I have my air intake set to external...

The air intake has a filter, otherwise as soon as one would drive on a dusty road the cabin would fill up with dust.

It’s not going to blow droplets into your face.

It is not about whether it spreads virus, but drive-in theaters are there for satisfying social appetite. You go there with your family & friends - enjoy a movie outdoor. Otherwise, what is the benefit of that over watching a movie at home on a 60 or 70 inch screen?

Some people don't have 50-or-60-or-70-inch TV's, and even if they do, they might not match the experience of watching a movie on a ginormous screen (at a fairly high quality, too- I can see the pixels on my 45" 1080p panel I got secondhand from 15-20' away) and the sound systems at theaters are waay better than a soundbar and the surround sound at theaters local to me is orders of magnitude better than what I can put together right now as well.

A drive in theater is not like that. It’s outdoors, bad visual and bad audio quality, that’s only done for the fun of going out.

Bathrooms / Porta-potties.

Litter.

And self-control. Kids especially - they'll car hop.

> it's still too many people in one place.

As long as no one leaves their car, I can't see how it's any worse than being in traffic. Shouldn't matter if there are 10 or 100 cars. Can't have bathrooms of course, or the "cars only" thing breaks down. Bring your own bottle.

I think the risk of bathroom transmission would actually be less than you think, mostly because there's already a lot of design and practices built around the fact they are unsanitary to begin with.

In several countries with lockdowns where supermarkets, fast food places and petrol stations are still open, the public-health authorities have ordered toilets at those places to be locked so that customers cannot use them.

The thing is, bottle requirement would make it basically guys only.

It would also be unworkable for dates.

For the females, a bucket or bag works.

No it does not. Definitely not in the car.

Tripple not in a car with other people looking at yoi when you had a choice to simply not go.

> I don't think the article actually has any evidence to support there IS a "surge in drive-ins around the country".

Well there probably is. But drive-ins at this point are incredibly rare. When I was a kid, many decades ago, it was already past the golden age of the drive-in and the few remaining holdouts were in the process of folding.

Some tenacious holdouts made it. A few closed theatres reopened.

https://www.driveinmovie.com/united-states

> Currently, there are about 325 Drive-in Movie Theaters still operating in the United States. There are many more that are permanently closed but still remain standing and could potentially be re-opened at some point in the future. In fact, there have been several drive-in theaters that have been re-opened the past couple of years after sitting dark for 20 and even 30 years.

So 325 maybe wasn't even the nadir as many have reopened and I doubt as many have been built anew. It's not a lot of theatres on the national scale.

I was just suggesting this idea to my wife the other day. She counter argued (and I think she's right) that this is still a risky proposition. If everyone arrives, stays in their car watching the movie and then leaves, great. But people see someone they know, or they want to let their kids out to run around, and those kids see other kids. And add others have mentioned: restrooms.

Restrooms can be sealed and placards posted. It does assume a certain bladder capacity though.

Not sure how to deal with kids though. Video conference call in the car?

My friends gave walkie talkies to their kids' friends and they have a lot of fun just talking over that. The range of walkie talkies can be surprisingly large.

I guarantee that if you lock the bathrooms you'll have people pissing on the door.

And just wandering off to the side of the lot and pissing there ...

You keep a bunch of people in an outdoor space for hours and don't allow restrooms, and inevitably you're gonna have outdoor urination going on.

This is actually fine as long as they pee 10 feet apart.

I think we should encourage it because in a controlled environment it's 'very low risk' and it's a way to 'get out'.

Obviously, no restrooms, no concessions, not getting out and running around. That would make it risky.

Also probably 1-inch max open windows.

With cars 1.5m apart, minimum.

This would keep things kosher I think.

We need to figure out how to have some fun or we're gonna go nutty.

I remember peeing in a soda cup at the drive-in as a kid. Good times.

Camera + fines for people getting out.

The bigger problem for me will be that half of the car owners will keep their engines running so they can have AC and the idea of sitting for two hours breathing exhaust fumes..

Aren’t you just describing driving? What is the difference between thousands of cars crammed together on an interstate vs some cars watching a movie in a field?

Presumably the cars crammed together in a field is supposed to be fun, whereas an interstate is supposed to be soul-crushing.

The ones on a field will be emitting less pollutants whilst there will be way less on the motorway per m2.

It's a bigger problem where I live in Europe because of the number of diesels. Petrol cars aren't that bad especially when only idling for the airco. Diesels are disgusting idling.

Propane and natural gas cars are common in some places. As evidenced by forklifts, the exhaust is clean enough for them to be used in large, somewhat-well-ventilated spaces indoor like warehouses.

How do you figure there would be less pollutants on the highway?

Where I live the density of cars on the highway is much greater than the density of the cars in the field.

I drive outside of rush hour so there aren't a lot of cars on the road. So as I originally said, for me it would be a problem.

For other people (like yourself) it isn't a problem.

I'll stay watching movies at home.

> Petrol cars aren't that bad especially when only idling for the airco. Diesels are disgusting idling.

Petrol cars do not do complete combustion and emit carbon monoxide which is toxic. Diesels don't. Modern diesels, running on mandated low sulfur fuel, can have lower levels of troublesome emissions than petrol cars. Trucks are a different matter though as they generally are not subject to the same emission standards at present.

I drive what, at the time, was being sold as the cleanest diesel engine ever. A super efficient VW which could do 33km for 1 liter of fuel.

All lies it turns out.

You can smell it easily whilst idling on a warm day with low wind.. and it smells really bad.

Right I own that car and you are right its claimed emissions were a lie.

I now have the fix and it complies with emissions regulations, and gets the same mileage as before. It was stupid of management and engineers to try to defeat emissions tests because clearly they were capable of delivering the car they promised using the engineering skills they had. Being dumb cost them billions of dollars and has nearly destroyed the company, a fine company. Someone just didn't want to do things right at the time and maybe got off on scamming. Current status is that this car has unbelievably low emissions and gets astonishing mileage and also has high performance.

Only problem is service costs a lot and requires specialized technicians. I hear Teslas and Apple products have a similar issue.

> I can smell it

Mine has no smell before or after the fix. I can smell petrol exhaust.

I formerly leased one before the fix. I thought it was 5-10% mpg reduction?

While diesel fuel combustion engines produce lower levels of carbon monoxide than gasoline engines, these emissions can still generate lethal amounts of carbon monoxide given a sufficient amount of time in an enclosed space. Carbon monoxide makes up anywhere from 2% to 12% of diesel exhaust gases.

https://www.dieselinjurylaw.com/carbon-monoxide-poisoning

Context is everything. Thousands of cars crammed together in either case, but one case with with the goal of transporting masses of people vs. burning gasoline to power a 3000lb generator and air condition your personal park bench while you move nowhere.

I don't know why everybody is talking about air conditioning; I've never used air conditioning at an outdoor movie theater. Maybe if you live in Southern Florida running the AC would make sense, but right now at this time of year most of the country is firmly in "bring a sweater" territory.

Keep in mind that outdoor theaters don't work during the day, only after dark, when everything cools down...

You're right, context is everything, and in this context a huge number of people who drive to work every day aren't driving now. So if fifty cars sit in a parking lot for an hour, and half of them are running, it's an extraordinarily small addition to the huge loss in overall emissions.

Except air flow from moving cars allows fresh air intake to have a better chance of actually getting fresh air than if your car is stationary directly behind the exhaust of another car

When you're driving, you dump the fumes behind you and move away.

And drive right into the fumes of all the cars in front of you.

Cars have air filters

Exposure if higher in the car:

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2746925/Why-suffer-...

The filter removes particles from the air. Not exhaust gases.

Hence catalytic converters, maybe?

I suppose this is a practical counter argument if you're both trying to make a risk assessment, but you could go keep the family in the car.

My friends have been doing a guerrilla drive-in by all driving up to the back of a closed down business off of the highway, projecting a movie onto the (white-painted) brick wall and using an FM transmitter for the audio.

The projector plugs into an inverter and projects through the windshield. We're still trying to figure out how to all talk to each other during the movie. So far, cell phones with earbuds and microphones seems to work alright but anything on speaker phone gets feedback.

The projector is something like 65W and is powered from the car on idle. It'd be nicer to run it off of batteries but that can get a bit expensive.

You could use something like presence.so for a private group voice chat.

The issue more is about feedback and getting a proper system in place that we can all (multiple people in one car) chat with everyone else in other cars while the movie plays over the transmitter. The simple solution of calling into a group hangout and setting speakerphone is that we quickly get feedback from the audio of the move from the other cars.

I love the drive in, but in a time of pandemic I don’t understand how the common resources like restrooms and food could be considered safe. It seems like a place at high risk for transmission between the hundreds of patrons that use them each night.

Concessions closed. Single movies (on the short side) only. Go to bathroom at home.

A lot of people (me included) won't make it through a round-trip drive plus an entire movie. The bathrooms are non-negotiable.

Also, cinemas make almost all of their profit from concessions, so if you remove those they're going to have to charge more for the tickets themselves to make up for it. Will people be willing to spend this much?

>A lot of people (me included) won't make it through a round-trip drive plus an entire movie. The bathrooms are non-negotiable.

Well, if you can't nobody should be allowed to.

Nice strawman you've got there. At no point was I saying anything should be banned.

"The bathrooms are non-negotiable."

That certainly implies bathrooms or nothing.

For me. I'm not going if there's no bathrooms. Or I'd just pee outside. Anyway it's academic since I don't have a car, but other people who do would be making these same calculations. Doubt you're gonna take a whole family if there are no bathrooms; you're practically guaranteeing an accident or leaving early.

I read some articles about drive-in theaters last month during social distancing, and they closed the concessions and encouraged people to bring snacks from home. They compensated by increasing the price a bit. Still plenty of takers.

Concession income isn’t an issue when the option is not open and make no money/lose money or open and make a little money. Not to mention the smaller ones could qualify for the SBA PPP.

They could deliver diapers to cars. The novelty might be good for business.

Then don't go. This is trying to give some people some sense of normalcy. If it doesn't work for you, that's fine, don't partake. But that doesn't mean it's a bad idea because a small minority of people can't hold their bladder for 2 hours.

It's a lot more than a "small minority" of people that wouldn't want no access to a bathroom for 3 hours (we need to include the drive time, remember).

But yes, you could do it safely if you required people to stay in their cars the entire time and provided no services, not even bathrooms. I honestly don't see this being that attractive a proposition to most people though. And I've never been to a drive-in theater in my life, so I don't know about restoring normalcy. Restoring normalcy would be going to a regular theater. A drive-in theater would be a novelty that I'm only experiencing because of the pandemic.

It is significantly easier to feel normalcy watching movie at home where I have done it many times. Rather then in drive through cinema you was never in before, sit in car and where you can't go to restroom.

when entertainment options are limited, people are likely willing to pay more. concessions can be sold drive through style without personal interaction. only restrooms are really a problem

> The bathrooms are non-negotiable.

Do you pee at the grocery store these days too? You couldn't pay me anything to use a public restroom anywhere in the US until we have a cure for this virus. I go to the bathroom before I make a store run. And I make store runs very infrequently, they are very concise runs, I avoid everyone, and I go only during extreme off hours, and I wear an N95 face mask that I heat sterilize afterwards. I also extensively sterilize everything I buy, which takes nearly a whole day to do properly. Things I can't directly sanitize go into a queue in the garage and are not used for 20 days.

Going into any public bathroom is an unnecessary risk. These drive in theatre bathrooms should be closed and locked, as should public restrooms in parks. Laws against urinating in public such as in the bushes at a public park should be suspended. Peeing into a cup in one's car should be promoted as a safer alternative to finding a public bathroom. These are all temporary measures but are necessary. Public bathrooms being non-negotiable? Then stay home.

I actually did pee at the grocery store a few days ago, but I've already had COVID-19. I probably wouldn't risk it if I weren't already immune, so point taken about avoiding them and making sure to go at home first, etc.

I agree that public bathrooms are a risk. When I said "the bathrooms are non-negotiable", what I meant is "I'm not going if there's not a bathroom", and if there's no bathroom because it's not safe, then a lot of people aren't going.

Grocery store trip is shorter even as we limited it to once a week, have a lot more to buy and more to wait.

Also, we grocery store cause we have no choice. Not be a use we would be seeking comfort and pleasure as in cinema.

Ohhhhh to be able to make it through a movie without having to go to the bathroom. And then to sit in line in a car to get in and out of a drive-in.

I don't think it's even legal in most communities in the U.S. to not have facilities where people gather. We take hygiene pretty seriously in this regard.

was going to suggest how great it would be for cinema systems to connect to your smart car! for what? i don't know... talk to someone, stream audio to your car, trivia about the movie, games for kids, etc...

and then i saw the no public restrooms. naw... some of us won't make it.

> stream audio to your car

Usually they use low-power FM radio stations for this.

In my town all "non-essential businesses" are closed, yet I'm still able to go to 7-11 to buy hotdogs off their roller machine. (And you can bet I do!) I don't see why hotdogs from a drive-in movie theater concession stand would be any worse.

They aren't. And your 7-11 should probably stop doing this too. I think we are taking a pretty big risk as it is eating food prepared by potentially sick people even when it's takeout or drive-through. I'll do a take-and-bake pizza only because I'll get the temp up to about 200 before I eat the thing - hopefully deactivating the virus in the process.

> I think we are taking a pretty big risk

While it doesn't call out recently prepared food, the CDC disagrees:

> Coronaviruses are generally thought to be spread from person-to-person through respiratory droplets. Currently there is no evidence to support transmission of COVID-19 associated with food. Before preparing or eating food, it is important to always wash your hands with soap and water for 20 seconds for general food safety.

https://www.cdc.gov/foodsafety/newsletter/food-safety-and-Co...

There's decent evidence that it can be passed through excretion, too. Active viral loads have been found in restrooms far in excess of what could be explained otherwise. The theory is that there's live viral particles in feces, and they get aersolized with the force of flushing. This is also consistent with the finding that diarrhea is a common symptom of coronavirus (I had it) -- there seems to be some kind of GI tract involvement that you don't see with e.g. the flu.

The CDC, FDA and WHO have been pursuing a non-science based approach from the beginning apparently designed to spread the virus.

I just made you a nice green salad. Before I hand it to you I sneezed.

Do you eat it? If you say no, then like me, you realize the CDC are massive disreputable liars. If you say yes you eat it, you are foolish.

> ...designed to spread the virus

That's a strong claim that's going to need a strong source.

> Do you eat it...

Just because something's gross doesn't mean it will make you sick.

According to a virologist Forbes found,

> ...risk of contracting SARS-CoV-2 through eating any food is extremely low. Food is not inhaled into the respiratory tract and any virus present will likely be inactivated in the stomach

https://www.forbes.com/sites/victoriaforster/2020/03/25/is-e...

> Food is not inhaled

Right, but you know you breath and eat through the same hole, right? So if you swallow, then inhale, you could be inhaling whatever you just ate...

Fortune favors the bold.

As do highly transmissable respiratory diseases.

"Life favors the prepared" - Edna Mode

A life spent cowering is hardly a life worth living, do you want to live forever?

You could close concessions or make it delivery. You text your order or something, maybe even put a little table outside each slot or put the food on the hood for contactless delivery. For restrooms, they could replace the normal interior ones with porta-potties. You could at least tape out the social distancing line and have a few more porta-potties than you'd normally have. All this would mean higher prices though.

I don't understand how people can think it's safe to eat food prepared by someone else, as long as you don't go near them. You know food is a transmission vector, right? If the cook or the waiter are sick, chances are they're infecting their patrons.

Yep.. our oral cavity has a ton of ACE2 receptors (much more than the lungs). Apart from eating it, in a round about way, I think people do recognize that its a vector, as the food container/packaging still qualifies as a surface that you can catch it off of.

We need to socially normalize peeing into a cup. My dad certainly made it the only option when we did cross country drives. No way were we stopping at the rest stop, that would ruin our record transit time. He wasn't the only dad, these stories are common.

"Pee in a cup, it won't mess your lungs up."

Use pee bottle if you're male.

Similar solutions are available for females too, such as the shewee: https://www.shewee.com

The first person to desperately need to defecate is going to pretty much ruin the drive-in movie experience for everyone.

Fortunately, humans need to defecate far less often than they urinate.

Maybe that would not be a bad thing?

This could only happen in places out in the sticks, such as Ocala. Where I'm from, another south florida suburb, the drive ins were paved over and made into shopping malls decades ago. Our son has only seen them in a period movie/show, such as Stranger Things, so sometimes I would describe them in a bit of detail.

No one is going to these things for nostalgia. They are going to because they are bored at home, under quarantine, and looking for something to do. If the governor didn't excempt drive-ins no one would even bother.

I mean I live in a pretty big city and we still have a few drive-ins. They’re cheap, dingy, basically just a snack stand, some projectors, and some gravel. But the experience is super fun and cute and intimate and social. Loading your friends up in the back of a van and being able to just hang out and chat while some movies play is so nice. It’s tailgating for non-sports people.

I don’t think they’ll ever need to blow-up since the operating costs are basically nothing. They can afford to be a little out of the way since you’re driving there anyway and they’ll just grab the cheapest plot they can find.

The middle ground seems to the be the outdoor movie circuit which is essentially picnicking to a movie. Cleaner, more expensive, marketing to young professionals. There’s lots of food trucks and local vendors.

But dammit it’s just not the same as building a blanket fort in your car, smoking weed, eating Milk Duds, and making out with your boyfriend while watching a B horror flick on a Friday night.

I think it could happen in cities. We have huge, empty parking lots outside of sports stadiums that aren’t being used right now.

Depends on the city. Wouldn't work for me or almost anyone I know because almost none of us own cars. Because of social distancing this is only workable if most people own cars. And you wouldn't be able to easily hang out with your friends anyway; you'd only be in the same car as whoever you already live with, at which point just watching from the couch, with the comforts of your own bathroom and refrigerator, sounds more appealing.

There's also contagion potential with the shared bathrooms and concessions at an outdoor theater type setup.

> Because of social distancing this is only workable if most people own cars

"Most people" don't need to go. You only need enough people to fill up the place.

If 1% of people in a big city starts going to drive in theaters, that would support several venues.

We'll see. I'm curious to see if any of these open up here in NYC. I'm guessing it's just not worth trying to do, though; the uncertainty is so high, and the payoff window is likely quite narrow.

The economy is pretty messed up right now though, and it's not a great time for new risky business ventures. And while you may be able to maintain social distancing while the venue is actually operating, how about while putting it together?

I’ve seen stadium parking lots used for state fairs, concert festivals, and even racing events.

Light pollution would be annoying though

Any place that has an expanding population has had land prices rise to where a drive-in theater isn't practical anymore. The one I went to as a teen was turned into a Medtronic campus. I haven't seen a drive-in theater in ages.

I'm from a country that doesn't live in cars, can someone explain the drive-in to me? Does everybody have a cabriolet, or how do you see the screen at all? Is it visible through the windshield? How about the audio?

There’s typically a large outdoor projection screen a few stories tall, and each car usually gets a set of speakers that rests on their front side windows. Although these days I bet more are moving to Bluetooth or something like that.

The audio moved to low power FM radio decades ago.

> Is it visible through the windshield?

Yes, or you can bring lawn chairs and sit outside next to your car instead. Or if you have a pickup truck, you can park the truck backwards and lounge in the truck bed.

You see it through the windshield, there is typically a short range radio transmitter that sends the audio so you can hear it over your car speakers.

Source: had a college job that involved inflatable movie screens and occasional drive-in style experiences

> Is it visible through the windshield?

Do you not have transparent windshields in your country?

Sure, the engine has one for the conductor, but most cars don’t.

I'm sure your country has at least a few personal cars. There are a a few islands that don't, but otherwise you have seen cars.

Automobile, not train.

Is this how you respond to everybody who's interested in your culture?

One thing folks haven’t mentioned is that there is a slight incline at the parking spot to help see the screen.

To add on, the parking lot is intentionally made to have rows of (small) hills, so each car will be pointed up towards the screen. Taller vehicles are restricted to the back row, trucks will usually back in and people sit in the bed to watch. Vans (and any remaining station wagons) will also often back in and sit in the back with the hatch open.

There's a half dozen drive-ins or so around the Hudson Valley.

They're great if you have small children and want to leave the house to see a movie -- your kids can bounce around the back seat without bothering anyone else.

It’s sort of an odd turn about. My grandfather owned and operated several drive in theaters in Texas. The businesses were handed down to him by his mother, who ran the theaters herself with her husband. Technology like home tv and the vcr changed peoples theater habits. They socially distanced at home and we saw a near extinction of the drive in theater. It’s sort of ironic that now were moving in the opposite direction. So much time with Netflix and various streaming services that we’re seeking out the safety of a drive in theater today.

What a resurgence. We closed our last theater in the 2000’s but I’ve got fond memories of working the box office with my grandfather weekend evenings.

Here’s one in NC which id currently closed per the NC stay-at-home order.

http://www.raleighroaddrivein.com/

It was briefly donating its location for Sunday prayers:

https://www.newsobserver.com/news/coronavirus/article2416043...

Apparently we have one drive-in theater in San Jose and one in Concord in the bay. I totally would have expected them to be extinct by now.

Appatently the SJ theater is hosting an Easter service today https://www.mercurynews.com/san-jose-church-hosting-easter-s...

That's brilliant and certainly perfect for today's climate of health concerns. Makes you wonder how much of past practices in society we shall reinvent. Certainly know a few people who learned to make their own bread and others growing some of their own food, not enough to live on but enough to augment their needs.

I am really hoping for new releases to to be streamed digitally now. I'd pay for it.

How much do you want it?

https://www.redcarpethomecinema.com/

From their FAQ: "Movies will be variably priced with the most current films in the low thousands - no movie will be priced below $500. This will permit two viewings within a 36 hour period."

I was thinking $20, heh.

I mean, I know there are people for whom $500 is loose change in the seat cushions. But are there seriously enough of them who absolutely must see a new release right now (and who don't know someone who can knock loose a screener for them) to support this as a business?

On their website, there is a "Fact Sheet" PDF with a 1-page business description linked at the bottom. It says:

"Target consumer: wealthy individuals with home media rooms"

Duh.

It also says the two founders were CEO of ticketmaster, and home distribution president at Warner Bros. I suppose these two would know how to price this, and who to talk to for licensing.

Yeah I just saw that. WTF.

Amazon just started a program that’s a bit more reasonable than the other one linked called Prime Video Cinema: https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Video/b?ie=UTF8&node=285877801...

I went to a drive in theater a few months ago with some friends. It was a pretty terrible experience. We tried sitting outside since it was be better than sitting in the cramped back seat of a sedan. That made it impossible to hear most of the movie since other cars would turn on their engines, or a low flying airplane would pass overhead, or a train would go by. Other problems: light pollution from cars driving by with their headlights on would fade the screen, other screens playing different movies was very distracting, and going to the bathroom would take 15-20 minutes since it was so far away.

A car seat is never going to be more comfortable than a movie theater recliner, or your own couch. And listening to a film over the radio isn't going to produce as good a sound as your home theater system.

It sounds like you were simply looking for a different sort of product. The point of a drive-in theater is not to produce a high-fidelity experience. You may as well go skiing and complain about the cold.

These sort of leisure would be the perfect opportunity to give some air to people and have some activity too. Employ people to check few people per car and same family and you're good to go.

I wonder how they handle having a hundred people needing access to a restroom. My memories of drive in included a line up 20 deep of women waiting to use the restroom.

Once a summer or so, my family goes to the Kenda Drive In in Marshall, Arkansas.

People usually play frisbee and socialize while we wait for darkness to arrive. Food and snacks are delicious and moderately priced. The ticket to get in is something like $20 a carload.

I don't know how the owners make money. I figure it must be some kind of community service project, promoting a wholesome community. It is awesome.

They closed ours down here in MO just as we were about to go this weekend, oh well.

Why risk your life and the lives of others to go watch a movie? Not essential and therefore very questionable.

I think it's important to remember that the goal is not to reduce the transmission rate to zero. The goal is to make sure people don't die unnecessarily due to overwhelmed healthcare systems. So far, it seems the physically distancing efforts in many states and countries have been sufficient to bring the transmission rate down to manageable levels, even though these efforts are imperfect and come with many loopholes.

Denmark, Austria and Czechia are all about to end their lockdowns and start reopening parts of their economies. They may be good test cases for how loose restrictions can get without having the transmission rate rise too high. But make no mistake, more people will get the virus and more people will die, which is currently the only way forward we have.

With a blanket rule like that you shouldn't do anything ever. What risk do you think isn't addressed properly here?

Hmmm let's see — restrooms, people sitting outside (like the kids in the photo) or passing close to each other, even cars parked closer than 2m together with the window open. I'm sure there are more. (Edit: I'm not saying that any of these are highly likely, but I do think it's impossible to rule them out).

I'd love to go to a drive in. It'd be a blast and good way to get out.

But when local/state governments can shut you down as "non-essential" even if you're following all the guidelines, no business can come back to life. They're just on a "stay of execution" until someone changes their mind the other way.

It won’t last. At the heart of great cinema is great audio, and you won’t find that in a vehicle.

> At the heart of great cinema is great audio,

We had cinema for decades, before any audio had even been introduced to films. And for the first decade or two, audio on films sounded atrocious -- roughly like an AM-radio track.

Somehow, I think "great cinema" will survive a few years of a few drive-in theaters offering stereo-FM-radio audio quality.

Fwiw most drive-ins broadcast movie audio over FM radio. Audiophiles could bring a good tuner and nice headphones, or a high end portable speaker and get good sound in the car or outdoors.

Some of the things that would always annoy me with cinemas would be people coming in late, leaving early, sitting near a group that is constantly talking, phones going off or people constantly checking their phones which shine bright in a darkened room.

At least these kinds of problems don't exist at the drive in.

I think people are less discerning than you think, and even non-premium car audio systems less bad than what most people watch content on regularly (laptop and tablet speakers, etc).

I see people do it and I don’t understand how they can stand tinny sound that’s nails on a chalkboard to me, but hey...

If a person is willing to watch a movie on a laptop with tinny speakers I don’t see why they’d bother going to a drive in.

Is the whole point of theatres not to see a movie in a big screen with great sound? If it wasn’t for that I’d just stay home and watch a movie on my OLED TV screen and surround sound system. I would never watch a movie on a phone or laptop.

A drive in movie is a great social experience unlike going to a normal theater. You can prepare a full fancy dinner to eat while watching. Then since you are using your car audio you get to set the volume. And if you want to discuss something you won't be interrupting anyone else. So, while it may not be an experience that idolizes technical achievements I find the drive in a fulfilling experience that offers an alternative to the conventional movie theater.

Meh. For the last 10 years maybe two movies a year get me to a theater, otherwise, television, laptop or phone for me. The only movie in my life where the theater factors into my subjective memory of a movie was The Dark Knight. I'll never forget how immersive the open scene was on a giant IMAX screen.

My memories of sounds in movies on the other hand are only of the bad, like some of the ridiculous sound effects in Transformers with overly accentuated bass

My laptop has better sound than my high school era 5.1 system had. It’s uncanny how good those tiny little speakers have gotten.

Mostly I watch on a laptop because it’s convenient. And the lack of a TV in the house discourages passively plomping my ass down and flicking through shit when I really should be doing anything else.

Honestly doubt that watching the movie is the pure and core reason people go to the cinema. I only go to get out of the house and share the experience with friends. I am usually annoyed at how loud the cinemas are, if it was about fidelity I would stay at home.

I don't think I'm alone in going to the cinema mostly for a shared experience with friends. For any other reason I prefer to watch at home, mostly on my laptop, albeit with a pair of decent headphones.

The audio in most movie theaters is so loud, I have to bring ear plugs. A knob on my dash that can turn it down is a superior experience.

Unfortunately 'great audio' has been replaced with those stupid butt beaters in the seats and some weird W shaped EQ cranked so high it starts clipping any time something moderately loud happens.

They could just suction cup a little bluetooth job to your window and you'd be in complete control of the audio experience.

I don't think that's true. The audio experience in many movie theaters is markedly terrible, due to the lack of proper volume calibration these days. And for many people, their car's audio system is the best that they own. I suppose the bottleneck would be delivery, but there are high-end, low-latency networked audio solutions out there, so streaming to a decent quality should be possible.

>At the heart of great cinema is great audio

It's amazing that you, the audiophile, assume that 99.9% of people really care about audio as much as you do. Spoiler alert- they don't.

Perhaps movies could be made with real dialog and stories and not just loud explosions and sound effects that necessitate "great audio" (a highly subjective definition to be sure.)

Strange that you think great audio is something only action films need. As soon as 5.1 mixing and encoding tools became cheap and widely available, even independent filmmakers writing "real dialog and stories" rushed to adopt them. And film schools emphasize how careful audio editing (and appropriate playback equipment) can bring a rich new dimension to one’s filmmaking, and some of the textbook examples that are used are 1960s auteur cinema like Ingmar Bergman’s Persona.

I happen to agree about the movie quality, but that seems to be pretty subjective too since my wife thinks otherwise. I never really understood the fixation on sound either, but each to their own. I can tell you what I want from a movie night: long island to numb me to all this low quality entertainment and comfortable seats. Drive-in won't work for my use case, but I doubt I am a target audience.

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