Texas Woman Reinvents the Drive-In

A personal tale of the Drive-In Theaters to Outdoor Movies 

One summer night, in San Antonio, Texas, the Ladewig family was having our usual family outing at a Drive-In theater. It was 1978, and I was ten years old. I remember sitting on the roof on my parents’ beige panel station wagon. We were supposed to be watching a Clint Eastwood movie, “The Outlaw Josey Wales,” but when you are on top of a car watching a movie at a drive in, you get to see ALL the other movies showing at the same time.  My twin sister Lisa and I just happened to catch a glimpse of our first rated XXX movie, “Debbie Does Dallas,” on the screen next to ours. “Yikes” is right! My parents were unaware of this exciting new movie experience since they were watching the Clint Eastwood movie from the front seat of the car. If it were not for my little brother telling my parents, I’m not sure how we would have escaped this embarrassing incident! I was glad when my parents moved the car so we were sheltered from this view. Later that evening, I jumped off the car to catch up with my dad and go to the concession stand. I slipped on the wet asphalt and had to have stitches on my knee. I still have a horrible scar… from the fall! Not from the rated XXX movie!

Laura Ladewig family who loved to visit the drive in together, kids sitting on top of the car to view.

Announcement of Drive In Theater on San Pedro Ave in San Antonio 1948

As I grew up, drive-in movies were such a memorable part of our lives. We would sneak into the drive-in by putting people in the trunk (not recommended now!), so we didn’t have to pay for everyone. It was a great hang out for us teens. Even my favorite movie, “Grease,” had scenes from a drive-in movie!

Darrell and Laura Landers. Darrell founded the company in 2008, which is now owned by Laura Landers, President. Darrell is the CTO.

In 2010, I ran into an old coworker who told me about his Outdoor Movie company. He was bringing back the Drive-In and making a mobile experience in family’s backyards. I asked him how I can be a part of that, and the rest is history!  That former co-worker is now my husband, Darrell Landers, and we became the leading Outdoor Movie Company in the country, Ultimate Outdoor Movies®.  In 2013 we added more services such as inflatables, photobooths and LED Screens. We even added locations from California to Texas and Maryland, which allowed our business to blossom into a woman-owned complete entertainment company, Ultimate Outdoor Entertainment®.

Before the world changed over these last few months, and our country just in the last few weeks, we were about to re-release our Drive-In division under our Full Moon Drive-In® brand, with a full slate of drive-in programming for our customers in the Texas area. Now, the COVID-19 crisis has changed all of that.  With public gatherings around the country being limited and indoor gatherings of 10 or more restricted in many places around the country, we are making adjustments just to stay afloat, support our employees, and provide a much-needed service for the community.

My love of the drive-in made me realize that we should take our outdoor movie event services and turn them into mobile drive-in movies and services. Now it’s the perfect solution for getting families out for some safe entertainment while maintaining safe social distances in their own cars. But it is more than that! We realized our Drive-In Movie Systems can help with other community engagement including gathering for worship from the safety of your car, or still getting together for a graduation ceremony to remain connected to your classmates. We’ve started getting requests we could not imagine before, and we are excited to be a useful service during an unknown time. Our customers can call us to setup a drive-in movie or event just about anywhere, from parking lots to neighborhoods to parks in any state.  We already have all the equipment including some of the largest inflatable movie screens anywhere in the country, the brightest HD projection systems, and some of the last remaining FM transmitters for that real drive-in movie experience.

Call uoe.com at 888-669-1298 or email us at events@uoe.com.