Big Sky to get big upgrade

Much like Polar Bears, drive-in theaters are an endangered species. With only 371 left in the United States, it’s unusual to see an establishment in working order. It’s even more unusual to see one thriving.

But between Odessa and Midland, one such rarity is getting an upgrade.

The Big Sky Drive-in is making the change from reels to digital equipment.

“We’ll be the second Texas drive-in to get this equipment, and the first drive-in for the state to have the new equipment on all our screens,” General Manager Lamont Furlow said.

Replacing the projectors and reels with new digital equipment should make the picture on the screen sharper, clearer and evenly focused on the screens. The process will take only three days and the tentative date for the debut is April 18.

“This is a big move for us. It’s an expensive move. I’ll be honest with you; I don’t know all the aspects. Basically, all theaters are going digital. You won’t see 35mm in theaters anymore,” Lamont Furlow said.

Lamont’s son, David Furlow, an employee at Big Sky, said he was excited about the change and said it should have happened a long time ago.

“Now I’ll have a projector and a hard drive with a movie on it,” David Furlow said. “It’ll make my job easier.”

Spending his life around movie theaters and growing up in the business, Lamont said the change to digital is a bitter-sweet feeling for him. Both his parents were movie projectionists when he was a child and Lamont said he worked in movie theaters most of his life. He said one of the saddest things he can remember was seeing the decline of drive-ins.  

“Drive-ins are in my blood. It was sad to see them go away. That’s where I met my wife. It’s great to see them coming back in,” Lamont said.

Hitting their peak in the 1950s and ’60s, University of Texas at the Permian Basin history professor Derek Catsam said the explosion of the drive-in was due to the car culture of that time and the changing teen culture.

“It was just a good place to go on a date,” Catsam said.

By the 1970s, drive-ins’ popularity started to decline and by the ’80s, they were being closed because of the land they were taking up.

But due to the high costs of ticket prices, Catsam said the popularity of the drive-in is starting to come back.

“Big-Sky has the model right. They have first-class concessions. They get the first-run movies. They do a really good job of what the drive-in should be,” he said.

David Furlow said he agrees that people are getting tired of dealing with movie theaters.

“People are realizing they don’t like going indoors sometimes. No kids kicking your seat or if you’re a smoker you can smoke. It’s like your own private movie theater,” he said.

Big Sky even has a concession stand that serves everything from the traditional items such as popcorn and sodas, to head scratching Chihuahua.

“It’s two fried corn tortillas, with fresh chili, onions and cabbage. The other side has cheese spread put together like a sandwich with a jalapeño. People will turn away once they hear the raw cabbage. It is our trademark but we don’t sell as many,” Lamont Furow said.