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The idea of constructing permanently-built walk-in outdoor cinemas has not caught on here in the U.S. I know from doing some internet research last year that you have a number of these venues in Australia and that Greece does also. Maybe the reason it never caught on here in the states is due to weather concerns and high land values. In most parts of the country the approximately 440 drive-in theatres we have must operate only seasonaly because of the changes in the weather.

One thing that we do have, usually during the summer, are a bunch of outdoor film festivals at temporarily constructed venues. This idea seems to be growing in popularity and a quick search on the WWW will turn up info on a number of such festivals where a screen in set up, often on a large grassy area, and projection and sound equipment are brought in to complete the package.

Some good examples of outdoor film festivals near where I live (Maryland/Washington, DC area) are the NIH Film Festival on the grounds of the world renound National Institutes of Health, a federal government medical research facility in Bethesda, Maryland; the Screen on the Green Film Festival on National Park Service land next to the Washington Monument; and the Little Italy Film Festival in the "Little Italy" section of Baltimore, Maryland.

The festival at NIH is set up on a grassy area between some of the administration buildings that slopes toward the screen like a natural auditorium. 35mm film is projected. The Screen on the Green also is on a grassy area and (I think) does 35mm as well. The Little Italy Film Festival is set up in a street and parking lot area and 16mm films are projected from the window of a house across the street onto a screen (actually a white billboard) on the side of a bulding.

With the popularity of outdoor film festivals growing in the United States, I'm surprised that we haven't seen at least a few permanent set-ups built in large parks or other locations where these festivals occur year after year.

There are picture here on Film-Tech in the Pictures section: http://www.film-tech.com/pics/park.html

And the newest ones that will most probably get about 100,000 on Australia Day with the biggest outdoor screen ever ...
http://www.moviesbyburswood.com

See you down there for Blade Runner Directors cut on the 15th Feb

Projection and sound are excellent.

Our company started an outdoor screen years ago at the NC Museum of Art here in Raleigh. It was bought a few years back by the museum itself and it still operates very successfully. They can handle up to 1500 people there and frequently have great attendance.

They can introduce some interesting technical problems though. There is just such a cinema at Waterworld on the Gold Coast (Qld) where the screen and stage speakers are across a section of water from the audience. The screen sound was so delayed when it reached the audience that there was insufficient surround delay available to prevent the surrounds being in front (time wise). Fortunately they had a Panastereo processor and were able to simply swap out the surround eq card for a second delay board, giving two delays in series which gave them the 300odd milliseconds they needed.