The screen was lit again at Hull’s Drive-in last week after a one weekend shutdown due to a broken projector. Theatre operations manager Christian Reter said that replacement of a key component in the projector, the light engine, fixed the issue with the projector.
Reter said, “The light engine is the heart of the projector. Replacing it should give the current projector a number of years more life. The old light engine lasted at least 15 years. Other parts for the projector are available, but some are no longer made, so replacement parts might have to be used or refurbished items. The good news is it looks like we were premature in thinking that this current projector was not repairable.”
Hull’s still could be looking at replacing the projector in coming years, but it appears that there is no immediate need to do so.
Hull’s Board of Directors Chairman Kevin Merrill further added, “ The light engine is one of the most critical and delicate subsystems in the projector, and these components are no longer manufactured for our outdated projection system. We really were lucky that the vendor still had a replacement available; without that subsystem availability this would have been a catastrophic failure. While our lights are back on for now, the root issue of our 20-year old projector needing to be replaced still remains.”
The Hull’s board of directors will be looking at determining a strategy for replacing the projector, along with a timeline to do so. Being able to replace the light engine has afforded Hull’s the luxury of being able to plan for the replacement.
Merrill added, “Keeping the movies playing on our screen was absolutely our top priority, but we also are going to need to start looking at the feasibility of adding a second screen if somehow possible due to the ever increasing constraints that our biggest movie studios put upon us to show their new releases. It’s very difficult with just one screen to offer our customers the newest releases when many movies release at the same time and the studios requires us to show a movie for three weeks, effectively blocking other new releases from being able to be shown.”
