Temple Update takes a nostalgic trip to a drive-in movie at Eakins Oval, on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway.
The Awesome Fest is sponsored by the Park and Recreation Department of Philadelphia. Mark Wilkens, Parks Concession Manager, of the Philadelphia’s Parks and Recreation Department was an integral part of the event.
“This past summer we started a programing series at the Oval,” said Wilkens. “New Shape of Fun is our tag line and its a bigger project to make the Parkway more of a community friendly space.”
The movies featured this past Friday were Arachnophobia and Big Ass Spider. The event was well attended despite the chilly Fall weather.
“Awesome Fest does awesome things with awesome movies,” said Director of Events for Awesome Fest, Chivonn Anderson. “We just goes around and try to get the community involved in movies that they’re normally not used to going out and seeing and actually being able to see on the big screen. It’s the 80th anniversary of the drive in. The drive in was started in 1933 by someone from Philadelphia.”
During the movie, the Philly Roller Girls skated around the parking lot bringing food to vehicles from the food truck venders.
In 1933, when the first drive-in opened the price of a ticket was twenty-five cents, as a way to celebrate the 80th anniversary Enterprise Car Share had a special perks for members.
“Anyone that was a member of Enterprise Car Share tonight was eligible to purchase a twenty-five cent ticket,” said Todd Whiteoak, Marketing Manager for Enterprise Car Share. “As opposed to anyone else non-member had to pay $19. We have had a good amount of people signed up at the event and had a greater amount of people sign up in advance of the event.”
For more information on The Awesome Fest in Media you can visit theawesomefest.com, they have one more movie night coming up on November 22. The movies being shown on the 22nd are Planes, Trains and Automobiles and Santa Claus conquers the Martians, which is a cult classic from the 1960’s.
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