The Dubbo Youth Council has arranged to reopen the West-View (according to the Daily Liberal newspaper) for a weekend in April 2017. The place is still for sale, and the sign looks even worst than the photo here. See http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/4391944/movies-to-return-to-dubbos-drive-in/ for the story, and http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/862369/return-of-the-drive-in/ for the way the sign looked in 2010.
The Paonia was not listed in the 1955 Theatre Catalog, so that gives us a narrow range for when it probably opened, thanks Chris1982.
Thanks for the link, Kenmore. Google Earth from 2016 still shows the sign there. From the layout, my guess is that the screen bordered the highway, patrons looped along the tree-lined drive to the south maybe past those ponds, then back to the main parking area?
According to a Flickr user, the other drive-in in Blanding was the Kigalia. There’s a photo of its weathered sign here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33237475@N05/5855645912/
Now I notice that only the 2010 story used a hyphen in the name. The 2017 story agrees with the spelling here. And I left a typo. Oops!
The Dubbo Youth Council has arranged to reopen the West-View (according to the Daily Liberal newspaper) for a weekend in April 2017. The place is still for sale, and the sign looks even worst than the photo here. See http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/4391944/movies-to-return-to-dubbos-drive-in/ for the story, and http://www.dailyliberal.com.au/story/862369/return-of-the-drive-in/ for the way the sign looked in 2010.
The Paonia was not listed in the 1955 Theatre Catalog, so that gives us a narrow range for when it probably opened, thanks Chris1982.
Thanks for the link, Kenmore. Google Earth from 2016 still shows the sign there. From the layout, my guess is that the screen bordered the highway, patrons looped along the tree-lined drive to the south maybe past those ponds, then back to the main parking area?
According to a Flickr user, the other drive-in in Blanding was the Kigalia. There’s a photo of its weathered sign here: https://www.flickr.com/photos/33237475@N05/5855645912/