At Busso: The Old Drive-in
Since the wife and I started coming down to Busselton semi-regularly about three years ago I have driven past the old unused drive-in a number of times. I have always wanted to get in and take some pictures before it disappears. Because there is little doubt it will disappear.
Well on this trip we just happened to be driving past the drive-in on the Bussell Highway when the owner was there and the gates were open. As I drove by I had to decide whether to turn around and check it out, or just give it a miss. Well I turned around.
I arranged with the owner for him to call me when it was convenient for me to take some pictures.
So today at about 3:00 p.m. I was in there taking some pictures of this drive-in before it goes 'poof' and it no longer there.
Unfortunately, but understandably, the speakers were no longer on the speaker posts. This could also be because many of the drive-ins converted over to FM transmissions for the sound so you didn't have to hang that big heavy speaker on your window.
People my age would have likely spent a lot of time in drive-ins. Windscreens wipers going on those occasions when it was raining, or trying to keep the condensation off the inside of the windscreen during cold winter nights. Listening to a movie with the absolute worst quality sound coming through a crap 3" speaker housed in a metal contained you hung on the inside of one of your side windows.
Many of those speakers got torn off their stands as people drove away. They had forgotten to hang the speaker up on the post before driving off.
The sound quality improved significantly when drive-ins began transmitting the sound via low-power FM—for those people that had an FM receiver in their car back in those days.
The picture above shows the ticket box in the foreground, then you can see the projection building to the left which also houses the Snack Bar, and then you can see the screen in the distance.
The very faded posters on the projection booth window are for the "Hunger Games: Catching Fire" and "Captain Philips". Catching Fire was the second Hunger Games movie and it came out late in 2013. Captain Phillips was also from late 2013. So it would seem that the Busselton Drive-in most likely ceased operating in late 2013—about three years ago.