Opened: 1950’s
Location: Ballarat Road, Bell Post Hill Geelong
Capacity: 640 Cars
Screens: One
Operator: Village Drive-in Pty Ltd
Closed: 1994
Poor old Geelong drive-in, you knew it was not one of the fleet leaders when a Village drive-in was not upgraded to Cine-fi sound! Never the prettiest drive-in, it was honest and a good solid crowd puller, in fact I suspect requirements for major maintenance expenditure was more the reason for closure than poor business. The last evening I attended this location one early Summer evening in 1990, the place was packed. Geelong always was a good drive-in market and the population supported two locations for the best part of 30 years. A projector upgrade? to Century’s in 1981 caused problems and eventually one of the machines siezed! this was serious stuff in a projection room. Century went through a bad patch at that time as their machines manufactured before that time and subsequently have been almost bullet proof. (I know these references to projection equipment may bore some of you, but believe me there are buffs that go crazy just at the mention of a projector.)
Special thanks to Mirek Spacil, former Geelong drive-in projectionist, and Gerad Garner former Geelong drive-in Manager for the photos used here.
