In a big city, going to the movies usually means picking a showtime on an app, buying a ticket and finding your seat. The theater is a business, and you’re a customer. In plenty of small towns, the relationship works differently.
Some of these local traditions have been around for decades, and a few have only recently been revived. Here are three that tend to catch visitors off guard.
The Theater Is Run by the Neighbors
In several small Iowa towns, the person selling you popcorn may be a volunteer rather than an employee. A recent radio feature looked at single screen theaters in towns of 3,500 people or fewer, some of them community run by a group of volunteers. Examples include theaters in Holstein, Ida Grove and Lake City, plus Wayne, Nebraska.
The reason is practical. The community run organizations rely on volunteer labor because the theaters otherwise wouldn’t be financially viable. Two of them, in Ida Grove and Holstein, sit about a dozen miles apart and share roughly 35 volunteers between them. Michigan offers a similar story: The Bay Community Theatre in Suttons Bay is a volunteer run nonprofit, and it came about after the family that had owned it for decades planned to stop operating it, and local residents met to discuss taking over.
The Movie Comes Through Your Car Radio
Drive in theaters are a novelty for many city dwellers, yet in small towns they’re often a family institution. America’s first drive in opened in Camden, New Jersey in 1933, and after World War II the number of outdoor screens grew to more than 4,000. Today, a drive in owner can join an association of more than 300 surviving theaters.
Fork Union, Virginia, shows how personal the tradition can be. A drive in near the town held on until 2012, and the daughters of the man who built it decided to reopen it. Plans call for a new screen, sound through car radios or a small portable unit, room for 180 cars, and hopes that community volunteers will staff it. In Kanopolis, Kansas, the local drive in was bought by new owners in late 2024 and reopened for the 2025 season after renovations.
The Show Starts Before the Movie Does
At some small town theaters, the pre show isn’t a stack of trailers. At Hull’s Drive In in Lexington, Virginia, the theater is described as the only nonprofit drive in in America. Volunteers help at the concession stand and ticket booth, and also support local events.
The theater has also given the stage to local talent. It built a stage in front of the screen for pre movie entertainment from local musicians and school music groups. For a city visitor used to a dark room and a silent audience, watching a neighbor’s kid perform before the feature is a very different way to start a night out.
