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Show Six Small Towns Find That Free Movies Promote Substantial Business Increase Everyone is aware that, as a modern entertainment medium, tlie drive-in theater has proved its worth, at least from the standpoint of personal comfort, convenience, and privacy; but it took some enterprising Kentuckians to apply the outdoor theater idea to a cooperative venture designed to lure business into their small towns. Take a look at these six little communities Port Royal, A MAIN FEATURE Pleasureville, Monterey, Bedford, Sanders, and W or thville located in north-central Kentucky. They're not on the rocks. Far from it. But, like many another village tvhose location puts it into involuntary competition tcith nearby larger towns, they felt that business could be better if they could find some way to attract farmers and other outlying citizens to their Main Streets. Basically, this is the old story of how present-day ease and speed of transportation has tended to encourage trade to by-pass the smaller towns unless they meet the challenge with plans and promotional activities. The answer, or at least a partial answer, for our six towns was proposed by Clifford Adams, an electrician, and R. L. Rains, pool room proprietor, both of Port Royal. They contracted with merchants of the six towns to show one free outdoor movie in each of the communities every week during the spring, summer, and early fall. During any given week the same motion picture is shoivn in a different toivn each night, beginning in Port Royal on Monday and ending in Pleasureville on Saturday. To illustrate' how successful the program has been, Pleasure-ville's Pleasure-ville's Saturday nights now see a temporary population increase of from 2,000 to 3,000 persons who flock to town for the occasion. Essentially, this six-toicn free movie plan owes its success to, its almost overwhelming simplicity. It is a scheme that ' couldn't work in the sophisticated, macadamized confines of a large city; but in such honest localities as Pleasureville and Bedford it is accepted with the genuine appreciation and enthusiasm of those to whom a little recre-ation recre-ation in the evening means much after a lot of hard icork in the fields during the day. The movies are sponsored by local merchants. Each sponsor pays a total of $2.50 a week, in return for which he may have a lantern-slide advertisement shown on the screen. Commercial ads from non-sponsors are accepted also, at the rate of $2.50 for a colored slide and $1.00 for a black and white typeicritten ad. A sponsor pays his weekly fee to Clifford Adams around 9 o'clock on the evening the show is appearing in his toicn. By that time, many of the people drawn into town by the movie have visited his store, and he already has recovered the sponsor's fee several times over because of the extra business. On Monday nights in Port Royal the stores stay open until 11 o'clock. Farmers come in to treat their families to a free movie, talk to friends, do some shopping, sell the eggs they bring in from the farm, and buy groceries for the week. For the young people, the first stop is at the drug store for refreshments, then on to the movie to try to find a good seat. Seating has been a real problem. A few fortunate early-comers early-comers can park their cars close enough to see. Others bring chairs, boxes, and orange crates which provide, at best, a somewhat rustic comfort. The screen is two bedsheets seicn together and tacked to the side of a barn. Generally, the shoic starts around dusk, tvilh the lantern-slide ads coming on first. At Port Royal, oddly enough, religion re-ligion is introduced into the proceedings, pro-ceedings, with the Baptist minister, A. II. IHcLrumen, delivering a sermon before the shoic. ' Port Royal's normal population is about 200. On Monday nights, however, upwards of 1,200 persons move into town to see the shoic. That means extra business. Clifford Adams and R. L. Rains? They each net a clear profit of about $50 a week from their enterprise. |