OCALA — The Ocala Drive-in Theatre received a digital projector after winning an online competition Monday.
The drive-in earned the projector as a prize for garnering a high number of votes in Honda’s Project Drive-in, which featured nine drive-in theaters across the country and invited people to vote for which ones should receive the upgrades. The voting period ended Saturday.
The program was originally only giving away five projectors but decided to give four more away to save additional theaters, said Charles Watzke, one of the Ocala Drive-in’s owners.
In April, 21st Century Fox announced that by summer it would discontinue 35 mm film reels — the type the theater plays every week. Many American drive-ins have closed already due to the cost of switching from film to digital projection, which costs about $80,000.
Watzke reopened the Ocala theater in 2011, after it had been closed down for eight years.
Representatives from Project Drive-In originally contacted Watzke, asking him to participate in the contest, he said.
The project was created by Honda to help prevent American drive-ins from going out of business. When voting, participants were given the option to donate money toward the projectors.
Now that the contest has wrapped up, the program, which features a U.S. map with pinpoints indicating the locations of drive-ins across the nation, will keep working toward saving as many drive-ins as possible, Watzke said.
Sara Ulrich, a 20-year-old UF advertising junior, used to go to the drive-in when she lived in Ocala.
“The drive-in theater was always so much fun to go to when I was younger,” Ulrich said. “Now that they have the new projector, I want to go back and experience the drive-in again.”
A version of this story ran on page 8 on 9/27/2013 under the headline "Honda to fund Ocala Drive-in’s digital projector upgrade"
