In addition to our normal news coverage, What Now Atlanta is tracking ways Atlanta’s businesses are adapting to the novel coronavirus and the challenges it brings to brick-and-mortars.
The Plaza Theatre, Atlanta’s longest continually operating cinema since 1939, is planning on reopening as ordered by the state, but as a no-contact drive-in.
“Doing some tests!,” The Plaza Theatre wrote in a Facebook post on Wednesday alongside photos of an inflatable movie screen in its parking lot.
“We’re hoping to be able to do a drive-in and we’d be able to do it in a way that would be fun but require no contact.”
The Plaza Theatre would use an FM transmitter so that moviegoers could broadcast sound from the picture to their car radios.
As for bathrooms, The Plaza Theatre “would encourage people to use the restroom before coming, but for anyone who has to use it, we would make ours available with limiting the number of people who go in at once and keep a spaced out cue line outside, but since it’ll be limited to about 49 cars at a single screening, it shouldn’t ever be crowded.”
The Plaza Theatre is aiming for a May 1, 2020 reopening, “although we’re still finalizing plans before we can officially announce times and titles,” a rep for the cinema Thursday told What Now Atlanta in an email.
Starlight Drive-In Theatre has already restarted playing flicks.
[Editor’s note 1: This article was updated with comments from The Plaza Theatre Thursday.]
[Editor’s note 2: The novel coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is rapidly evolving as is its effect on Atlanta, and the City’s businesses and its residents. Click here for What Now Atlanta’s ongoing coverage of the crisis. For guidance and updates on the pandemic, please visit the C.D.C. website.]
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