Over View Of The Drive In Theater Market Marketing Essay

Every one of you will be familiar with the cinema hall. Where people come and watch movies in side the Cinema Hall. A drive-in theater is another kind of cinema. It can also be called Outdoor Cinema. “It is a kind of cinema structure which consists of a large outdoor screen, a snack bar and a large parking area for Cars. Within this enclosed area, customers can view movies from inside their cars. It means that customers will sit inside their cars and will see the outdoor screen from inside. They will be charge per car.

The “outdoor screen” can be as plain as a wall that is painted white. In the past, movie’s sound was provided by speakers on the screen which was attached with a wire. This system was more improved by the more inexpensive and less damaging method of broadcasting the soundtrack at a low output power on AM or FM Radio to be pick up by a car radio. This method also allows the soundtrack to be pick up in stereo by the spectators on an often high reliable stereo install in the car.

As in the indoor cinemas (Cinema Hall), from Snack bars Cinema owners earn most of their profits. As a result, drive-in theatre can also earn extra margin from the concession stand and their promotion should be oriented toward the snack bar because it will increase the interest of people and also the good characteristics of drive-in-theatre can be convey through the advertisement. The typical snack bar offers foods that can be serve speedily, such as hot dogs, pizza, cheeseburgers, popcorn, soft drinks, coffee, hot chocolate, ice cream, candy and French fries. To remind patrons to go to the snack bars, trailer advertisements were being shown during intermissions of movies. Some drive-in theater managers added children’s playgrounds in front of the screen between the first row of cars, as well as indoor seating for the snack bar. Because of the outdoor setting of drive-in theater, they are only shown at night when it is dark enough to see the screen clearly.

History of Drive in Theatre

The drive-in theater was invented by Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr, who was the owner of chemical company magnate in Camden, New Jersey. In 1932, Hollingshead had conducted an outdoor theater experiment in his driveway at 212 Thomas Avenue in Riverton. First he nailed a screen on the trees in his backyard, and then he set a 1928 Kodak projector on the top of his car and placed a radio behind the screen, for the purpose of trying different sound level with his car windows up and down. Blocks under motor vehicle in the driveway enable him to find out the size and spacing of ramps so cars could have a clear view of the screen. After these experiments, he had applied on August 6, 1932, for the patent of his creation, and he was awarded US patent 1,909,537  on May 16, 1933.

Hollingshead opened the first Drive in Theatre in New Jersey on June 6, 1933, on Admiral Wilson Boulevard at the Airport Circle in Pennsauken. Near to Cooper River Park. He had advertised his drive-in theater with the slogan that “The whole families with babies are welcome, no matter how noisy the children are.” The first film shown in his Drive in theatre was the Adolph Menjou film Wife Beware. The business only operated for three years, but during that time the concept of Drive in Theatre caught on in other states. Such as in April 15, 1934, the opening of Shankweiler’s Auto Park in Orefield, Pennsylvania. Followed by Galveston’s Drive-In Short Reel Theater (July 5, 1934), the Pico in Los Angeles (September 9, 1934) and the Weymouth Drive-In Theatre in Weymouth, Massachusetts (May 6, 1936). The popularity of Drive in Theatre was such that it spread in all over the world even it reached Pakistan in 2008.

On the initial stages Drive in theatre had to deal with noise pollution problems. The original Hollingshead drive-in theater had external speakers which were making loud noise outside and the customers could hardly listen to it inside their cars. . Attempts at outdoor speakers next to the vehicle did not produce satisfactory results. In 1941 the in-car speakers with individual volume controls solved the noise pollution issue and provided satisfactory sound to drive-in Theatre.

1.2.1 Drive in Theatre’s Peak

The drive-in Theatre tastes the peak popularity in 1950 and in 1960, especially in rural areas, where the numbers of Drive in theatres were 4,000 across the United States. Among the advantages of Drive in Theatre was the fact that people with babies could take care of their children while watching movies, while teenagers with their own cars found drive-in Theatre ideal for dating. Income is more limited than regular theaters since showings can only start at nights. There were unsuccessful attempts to create right conditions for daylight viewing such as large tent structures, but nothing workable was developed.

In 1950, the greater privacy given to the customers gave Drive-in Theatre a reputation as morally wrong, and they were named “passion pits” in the media. During 1970, some Drive-in Theatre altered from family entrance fee to exploitation films, as a way to offset declining revenue. In fact some producers in the 1970s were making exploitation films directly for the drive-in theaters market. Many Drive-in Theatre devised every detailed and sometimes strange modes of comfort. Some drive-in theaters provided small heaters, in an attempt to attract their customers to come in colder months. Some drive-in theaters provided a heating or air-conditioning system through underground ducts to heat or cool their customers. Audio systems also varied greatly during the time of Drive-in Theatre. Some used portable speakers on trucks during the early days but this proved to be ineffective since the people in the front were irritated with sound while the people in the back could not satisfactorily hear what was being said. Later still, as in-car stereos became standard equipment, broadcast of the audio track on particular radio frequencies permitted the most efficient means of delivery.

During their peak time, some Drive in Theatres used exciting gimmicks to enhance attendance. They ranged from small airplane runways, actors to open their movies, or musical groups to play before shows. Some Drive-in Theatres held religious services on Sunday morning and evening, or charged a flat price per car on slow nights like Wednesday. Some Drive in Theatres set price of a dollar per car during “buck” nights (weekend nights) in the 1950s and 1960s.

1.2.2 Drive in Theaters Declines

Over time, inflation and recession made the large property areas expensive for Drive-in Theatres to operate successfully. Land became too precious for businesses like drive-in Theaters usually during summers. The residents’ routine of saving daylight time subtracted an hour from outdoor evening viewing time. The discovery of color televisions, DVDs extra led to a decline in the Drive-in Theaters popularity though many drive-in theaters continued to successfully operate in some areas.

Many Drive-in theaters movie sites remained as storage or markets sites, often after residential housing came to the lightly-populated or unoccupied areas where the drive-in theaters were located. The largest drive-in theater in the world, the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop, converts to daily market which became the world’s largest daily flea market. The previous Drive-in Theater properties in Michigan (USA), for example, had become industrial parks, shopping centers, indoor theaters, and even.

1.2.3 Drive in Theaters Revival

The year 2001 revived drive in theater with the opening of the “Do-It-Yourself” Drive-in Theater, which utilized contemporary tools such as LCD projectors and micro-radio transmitters. The first was the “Liberation” Drive-in Theater in Oakland, California, which reclaimed under-utilized urban spaces such as vacant parking lots in the downtown area. The following years have seen the rise of the “guerrilla drive-in theater” movement, in which groups of dedicated individuals orchestrate similar outdoor film and video screenings. Showings were also organized online, and participants meet at specified locations to watch films shown at warehouses or on bridges. The best known guerilla Drive-in Theater include the Santa Cruz Guerilla Drive-in Theater in Santa Cruz, California, MobMov in San Francisco, California and Hollywood, and most recently Guerilla Drive-In Victoria in Victoria, British Columbia.

These are the names of drive-in-theatre at different countries. A pseudo-Drive-in Theater had been launched where the cars were provided by the organizers. In the UK the Volvo’s urban Starlite Drive-in Theater are held inside the Truman Brewery in hip East London where the urban population get the chance to watch classic films in a fleet of convertibles. It is not revived in Pakistan but this business has been introduced for the first time by Cine pax group of Cinemas in Lahore and Karachi as an outdoor screenings mostly located in an open grounds, parks etc.

1.3 Purpose of the Study

Cine Pax group of cinemas has introduced the system of Drive in theater in Pakistan. In 2008 Outdoor cinema (Drive in Theater) has been introduced in Lahore and Karachi. Since 2008 it has received plenty of encouragements from the population of Lahore and Karachi and is doing successful business.

The reason behind its success is that people are tired of watching movies in old Cinema Halls with no facilities at all. Furthermore, the decline of Lollywood (Pakistan film Industry) further helped to close the doors of Cinema Halls. Now people in Pakistan want to have change, they like to watch movies in different way with new facilities. The recent success of drive-in-theatre worldwide and the type of responses this theater system is getting in Lahore and Karachi have compelled us to conduct this research.

The objective of this study is firstly, to identify the target market of Drive in Theater in Peshawar and secondly, to make a plan of launching it in Peshawar. We have also observed that the high class people of Peshawar visit Islamabad just to watch movies in high quality environment of Cine Pax Cinema on weekends so we thought of conducting a research on the market of Drive in Theater in Peshawar to help those who are intending to start this business but are afraid of whether Drive in theater would be successful business in Peshawar.

Chapter 2

Literature Review

2.0 Introduction

Different researchers have published different reviews on drive in theatre, for discussing the best views we have selected reviews of some researchers articles in which some said that the future of drive in theatres are dark and some said its really flourishing world wide. Some researchers’ show how this business is operated and what facilities should be given to the customer in order to be successful and also it showed the benefits of drive in theatre to the general public.

The drive-in theater was the invention of Richard M. Hollingshead, Jr, who was the owner of chemical company magnate in Camden, New Jersey. Hollingshead came across the idea of introducing Drive in Theater for the first time in USA in 1932 he constructed a questionnaire regarding Drive in Theater and he asked the local population to give their opinions about Drive in Theater, He analysed the data through Pie Charts and frequency distribution and came up with a conclusion that he had got 50% positive response from the respondents then he started to build first drive-in-theatre. First he nailed a screen on the trees in his backyard, and then he set a 1928 Kodak projector on the top of his car and placed a radio behind the screen, for the purpose of testing different sound levels with his car windows up and down. Blocks under vehicles in the driveway enabled him to fix the size and spacing of ramps so all cars could have a clear view of the screen. After these experiments, he applied for a patent of his invention, and he was awarded US patent 1,909,537  on May 16, 1933.

According to the study of Richard M. Hollingshead after he invent the first ever drive in Theater in 1933, he ran the business for three years, and the success was such that the concept of Drive in Theater caught on in other states. Such as in April 15, 1934, the opening of Shankweiler’s Auto Park in Orefield, Pennsylvania Followed by Galveston’s Drive-In Short Reel Theater (July 5, 1934), the Pico in Los Angeles (September 9, 1934) and, three more opened in Ohio, Massachusetts and Rhode Island, with another 12 during 1938 and 1939 in California, Florida, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Texas and Virginia. Just because they saw the success of my Drive in theater business.

Kerry Seagrove is another Author on drive in theatre. In his book “a history from the inception in 1933” he added his reviews on the reason behind the success of drive in theater in 1993 after his research was complete, he stated that the basic reason behind the success or craze of Drive in theatre in US was two factors. Firstly America’s love affair with the automobile (cars) and secondly, the postwar baby boom which is the increase of birth rate in US after the World War II.

According to Kerry Seagrove Drive in Theaters were an ideal place for a young family with children no baby-sitter needed like indoor cinema require, no parking problems if located in open ground, Customer can come and dress as they like, and (they provided) relatively cheap entertainment in terms of ticket price.” In keeping with the family orientation of drive-in theater Kerry Seagrove suggested some facilities in Drive in Theater for customers. He said children’s lesser than 12 should be allowed to watch the movies free of cost, there should be playgrounds in front for children, and even bottle warmers should be available.

According to him the industry reached its peak in 1952, when the average weekly attendance at outdoor theaters increased than that of traditional theaters by 1.3 million. By 1955, there were more than 3,700 drive-in theaters in the United States. That number peaked in 1958, when more than 4,000 Drive-in Theater businesses brought in $230.42 million to the industry.

Bob Wagner, owner of the Bel-Air Drive-In Theater in Churchville, Maryland, has second the reviews of Kerry Seagrove. In 1996, he told the Washington Post, “We’ll be around for awhile longer in Drive in Theater business, I think. I don’t see anybody ever building a new drive-in. But we’ll keep this one going by doing whatever we can think of.”

According to him no longer venues for low budget B-pictures and second runs of top level films, drive-in Theater offer the same features that are shown at indoor theaters. As with indoor theaters, the amount of business done by drive-in Theater depends upon the general popularity of film releases. In the summer of 1996, some drive-in Theater was filled to capacity during showings of the blockbuster films.

In addition to being dependent on the appeal of current films, a drive-in Theater business depends on good weather. “Weather is the key. On a Good Friday or Saturday we can get 1,500 to 2,000 people in Drive in theater. But even the prediction of rain keeps people away,” Memphis drive-in Theater owner Larry Pankey explained to the Memphis Commercial Appeal.

According to Bob Wagner (1996) new problem for drive-in theater is the changing style of automobiles (Cars). Drive-in Theater must not contend with vans, trucks, jeeps, and recreational vehicles which can block the view of customers in regular cars. Relegating high and bulky vehicles to the back row is not always possible due to the increasing number of them.

In brief article Mr. Marci Davies (September 27, 1999) mentioned that he has diminished the drive-in theater experience.” He said the Drive in Theater is declining because the real killer has been urban growth, which has seen drive-in Theaters occupying land worth far more to developers (Construction) than to a seasonal Drive in Theater business. According to him due to inflation and recession and after residential housing came to the lightly-populated or unpopulated areas where the drive-in theater were located the land for Drive in theater have become expensive to operate in as a result the largest drive-in theater in the world, the Fort Lauderdale Swap Shop, converts to daily flea market which became the world’s largest daily flea market. The previous Drive-in Theater properties in Michigan (USA), for example, had become industrial parks, shopping centers, indoor theaters.

According to George Grube (2004) president of Heritage Theaters Inc., 1901 Classen Blvd., which operates Hillcrest, Macarthur Park Theatre, Chisholm West Cinema “I hope drive-in theater will going to continue to be a desirable place for families to go.

According to MacLean’s Article (1999) Industry think tank feels that drive in theater is declining and is no longer a successful business. Because there is speculations that Cineplex Odeon, Canada (popular Drive in theaters) was shutting down its 10 remaining drive-in movie theatres provoked much nostalgia last week — except in Quebec, where drive-in theater continued to flourish and will remain open

After studying all the reviews from different researchers our research group have decided that we will be following “Richard M. Hollingshead” (1933) approaches because this author is the founder of Drive in Theater. He showed us how to arrange the required equipments required for Drive in Theater. Furthermore he has given us a hope that the future of Drive in theatre is bright because he got 50 % positive response from the population at that time. He said after seeing the success of the way he ran the business of Drive in theater, Drive in Theater continued to spread in other parts of the world so will try and follow his research methodology and we will try to suggest new facilities in order to attract the customers in Peshawar

Chapter 3

Research Methodology

Introduction

This is an exploratory type of research project to analyze the target market of drive-in-theatre in Peshawar along with the implication of it. Different researchers have examined the market of drive-in-theatre in different markets with the passage of time as mentioned briefly in literature review. The objective of this research is to analyze the target market for drive-in-theatre at Peshawar and as earlier we mentioned that it’s an exploratory type of research and we are going to interpret our result through Pie chart and frequency distribution in order to know the implication of our research.

The methodology followed in this research report is of Richard M. Hollingshead (1933), he conducted a research on general population through Questionnaires and Interviewed the target respondents and interpreted the result through Pie chart and frequency distribution before starting this business he set more than 50% positive responses in order to start this business so we will present our result through Pie charts and frequency distribution and we will assume our survey successful if we get more than 50% positive response from our target audience. According to Kerry Seagrove, he identified that arranging space for big and small cars can be a problem so in order to solve this problem we will suggest that small cars should be at front and the big cars should be at backside due to which there should be enough space between the rows of small cars and big cars so that the large cars can be easily parked at the back side and we will recommend new facilities for drive-in-theatre in the fifth chapter of this report as recommendation.

The first and most important facility that was suggested to provide was security to the audience because the biggest threat to the cinema business is security. The other facilities that were suggested by the respondents with majority were to provide pop corns, cold drinks, Fresh coffee, and privacy. Majority of people wanted to see latest release of Bollywood movies with original Prints

Q11: What ticket price is affordable to you? Please write down.

This is an open ended question to which every individual participant suggested from their own opinion. Many people suggest different ticket price for the Drive in theater according to their affordability if it is to be launched in Peshawar but here we will mention those Ticket price that were mentioned in majority.

There were respondents from 3 classes such lower class, middle class, higher class and each suggested ticket prices which were affordable to them in Peshawar. The lower class ticket prices ranged from Rs/-100-150. The middle class ticket prices ranged from Rs/-200-250. Higher class people ticket price ranged from Rs/-300- 400.

Q12: To what extent drive in theatre at Peshawar will attract the Peshawar customers of Ceni Pax cinema (Rawalpindi)? Please write down

This is an open ended question to which every individual participant suggested from their own opinion. Many people suggested different opinions regarding whether Drive in theater will attract those people of Peshawar who are use to visiting Cine Pax cinema (Rawalpindi) in order to watch good quality latest Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

Majority of people stated that Cine Pax cinema is a well known brand in Pakistan and people will keep visiting that even if Drive in theater is being introduced in Peshawar. More than half of the respondents appreciated the concept of introducing Drive in theater by saying that it is a very creative concept and no one has been to such Cinema before in Peshawar and if this system of Cinema is being introduced in Peshawar it might even attract people from other cities.

Q13: What location would you suggest for drive in theatre (Outdoor Cinema) in Peshawar?

This was an open ended question to know the views of respondent regarding location for this drive in theatre so majority of the respondent suggested Peshawar Cantt (Sadder) for drive in theatre due to the commercial area, more security and easily accessible from all around Peshawar and around areas of it while some of the respondents suggested Swan restaurant (Hayatabad).

Chapter 5

Conclusion and Recommendation

5.0 Conclusion

At last, the phase has come where we need to conclude our research (Survey) for the possible market of Drive in theater in Peshawar. We have observed that Drive in theater is a kind of business which can be run even with limited resources because it just require a screen, a projector, a concession stand and a rented ground when we add all costs it required 240000 Rs for starting this Business. Beside from the investment required we found with the help of responses to our survey there is a bright market (High demand from the population) for the Drive in theater in Peshawar because according to the responses given to our survey the target audience stated that it is a very new concept in Peshawar and it is unique enough to attract people not only from Peshawar but other cities of Pakistan because drive in theater is very limited in Peshawar. 55% of the target audiences prefer to go to outdoor cinema (if any) and 53% of the audiences prefer watching movies from their cars (a kind of outdoor cinema). Beside this 35% each people want to go to drive in theater with their families and with a group of people respectively.

From the survey we got two most frequently suggested locations for those people who can locate in their drive in theater business “open ground in swan restaurant Hayatabad and Dean’s roof top Cantt area”. The overall result of our survey is more than 55% positive response for the drive in theater in Peshawar. Which means that our survey has been successful because the inventor of drive in theater Richard M. Hollingshead (1933) also assumed his survey of drive in theater successful if he got more than 50% positive responses for his survey he would consider his survey successful as a result we are also following the survey methodology of the inventor of first ever drive in theater ever Richard M. Hollingshead (1933).

5.1 Recommendations

The findings of this research study recommend that drive-in-theatre can be successful business in Peshawar. Since, the success ratio (percentage) of our analysis through frequency distribution and pie charts is above 50% to the extent of our sample data so this showed us that drive-in-theatre has the potential market in Peshawar. As we know that now people needs change due to which we are suggesting that if this drive-in-theatre introduce in Peshawar then

They should run original printed Bollywood and Hollywood movies.

The general facilities audiences in drive in theater should be pop corns, cold drinks, Fresh coffee, privacy, security, good quality movie prints.

The most appropriate ticket price can be 250 Rs for four seated car and 400 for big cars with more than 4 people inside it.

The suitable location can be should be Shiraz Arena Deans Trade Center (Sadder) where they have got lots of space for car parking which can be utilize for this purpose and Swan Restaurant Hayatabad.

REFERENCE

In the preparation of this report visited different locations of Peshawar for our survey and other relevant information is obtained from the following sources:

WEBSITES

(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drive-in_theater

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_active_drive-in_theaters

http://books.google.com.pk/books?id=zbMF6S0k_xIC&printsec=frontcover&dq=drive+in+theaters&source=bl&ots=cxPx2dMZ2g&sig=c5WASCUoNC-NPOE0WJDEAkFoS_s&hl=en&ei=h7-lTJH4EIXCcaT65aQH&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=7&ved=0CDEQ6AEwBg#v=onepage&q&f=false

http://inventors.about.com/library/weekly/aa980121.htm

http://www.5drivein.com/

http://www.driveintheater.com/drivlist.htm

http://www.viewlondon.co.uk/cinemas/outdoor-film-events-feature-232.html

http://www.openaircinema.us/

http://www.outdoorcinema.com/

http://www.outdoorcinemafoodfest.com/

http://www.outdoorcinema.net/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=40

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Drive-in Theaters: A History from Their Inception in 1933(author Richard Hollingshead)

Cinema Under the Stars: America’s Love Affair With the Drive-In Movie Theater (Author Kerry Seagrove)