Drive-In Motion Picture Theaters (U.S.) — Industry Primer

NAICS 2022 code 512132. NAICS is the North American Industry Classification System, the standard the U.S. government uses to group businesses. [1]

1. Overview

A drive-in movie theater sells you a film you watch from your car, on a large outdoor screen, in a big open-air lot. Sound comes through your vehicle's FM (frequency modulation) radio, tuned to a low-power station the theater broadcasts on-site. At its core this is a small, local, weather-sensitive entertainment-and-real-estate business that happens to show movies — not primarily a stock-market sector.

It is also one of the smallest industries the federal government tracks. Roughly 290 establishments generate about $100 million in total annual receipts across the entire United States [2][3]. The industry employs fewer people (773) than a single large indoor multiplex chain staffs in one region [2].

Two things are worth understanding up front:

• There is no public "pure-play" drive-in company. No U.S.-listed company's business is primarily drive-in exhibition. The listed movie-theater names (AMC, Cinemark, Marcus, Reading International, IMAX) are overwhelmingly indoor operators for whom drive-ins are a rounding error. Public exposure is therefore indirect and immaterial (Section 4).
• For private investors this is a small-business or real-estate story. You buy and run one drive-in, or you buy the land for its redevelopment optionality. The recurring question in the sector is the same one: is the land under the screen worth more as a theater, or sold to a developer? The U.S. Small Business Administration (SBA) treats essentially every operator as "small" — its size standard for this industry is $12.5 million in average annual receipts [5], far above what any single site earns.

2. What it is and how the industry is structured

Scope. NAICS 512132 covers establishments primarily engaged in operating drive-in motion picture theaters — showing films to an audience seated in vehicles in an outdoor lot [1]. Revenue comes from admissions plus concessions (food and drink), with a growing side of events and other property uses.

What it excludes (adjacent NAICS codes):

• 512131 — Motion Picture Theaters (except Drive-Ins): conventional indoor "hardtop" cinemas. This is the far larger sibling; the two together make up NAICS 51213, motion-picture exhibition.
• 512120 — Motion Picture and Video Distribution: the studios/distributors that license films to theaters.
• 512110 — Motion Picture and Video Production: filmmaking.
• 512199 — Other Motion Picture and Video Industries.
• Live outdoor entertainment (concerts, festivals, or pop-up screenings whose primary business is the event, a restaurant, a retailer, or a fair) falls under performing-arts and promoter codes in NAICS 711, not here [1].

A classification quirk: some drive-ins are a secondary operation of an indoor chain (a hardtop operator that also runs one drive-in screen). Those tend to be counted under the parent's primary code rather than 512132.

Ownership mix. Overwhelmingly private and independent. The federal data give no public-versus-private or legal-form breakdown, but the shape is clear: 176 firms operating 290 establishments, with revenue concentration (Section 3) pointing to a handful of larger multi-site operators sitting atop a long tail of single-site, owner-run, often seasonal family businesses [3][4]. Ownership is typically tied to the operator's land, local reputation, and succession plans. The largest drive-in chain, West Wind Drive-Ins, runs about six locations across California, Arizona, and Nevada [18][19]; Malco Theatres (a Memphis indoor chain founded in 1915) runs a multi-screen drive-in alongside its cinemas [18]. No national drive-in chain exists.

3. How big it is: ground-truth federal figures

Our federal figures describe a very small industry:

Note the years differ: employment, payroll, and establishments are 2023; receipts, firms, and concentration are 2022. They should not be mechanically reconciled. With that caveat, receipts work out to roughly $346,000 per establishment (2022 receipts over 2023 establishments) [2][3] — consistent with independent operator estimates that a working drive-in grosses about $300,000–$500,000 a year [10].

Concentration. Despite the mom-and-pop image, revenue is moderately concentrated because a few multi-site operators sit above the long tail. The top 4 firms earn about a third of receipts (CR4 = 33.6%), the top 8 nearly half (42.9%), the top 20 about three-fifths (59.0%), and the top 50 more than three-quarters (77.9%) [4]. The Herfindahl-Hirschman Index (HHI), a standard concentration measure, was suppressed for this industry and is not stated here [4].

Undercount caveat. These figures count employer establishments — businesses with paid employees — whose primary line is drive-in exhibition. County Business Patterns (CBP) by design excludes the self-employed and businesses with no employees, which the Census Bureau measures separately in its Nonemployer Statistics program [6][7]. That matters here because drive-ins are seasonal, small, and often run on unpaid family labor, and because pop-up screenings, event income, on-site restaurants, flea markets, and land rents may be classified outside 512132 [1]. These are coverage gaps, not license to invent an adjusted total. As a cross-check on the physical count, the United Drive-In Theatre Owners Association (UDITOA) listed roughly 280 open theaters and 480 screens in its 2025 directory — a figure it compiles from multiple sources and cautions may contain errors, so it is not directly comparable to Census data [8]. Press counts in recent years run in the same ~280–310 range [13]. All three sources bracket the same reality: the employer core the $100 million receipts figure measures is a fair picture of the industry.

Historical scale. Drive-ins peaked at about 4,063 sites in 1958, when they were roughly a quarter of all U.S. movie screens [11][12]. The fall since — to under 300 — is one of the steeper long-run contractions in American retail entertainment.

4. The investable universe

Public companies — indirect exposure only. No U.S.-listed company is primarily a drive-in business. The names below are the indoor-dominated exhibition and cinema-adjacent companies an investor might otherwise reach for; drive-ins are immaterial to each. Tickers and scale are for orientation only.

These stocks are useful for reading theatrical demand, content supply, and concession trends, but their prices are driven by broad theater, debt, and corporate factors — not by NAICS 512132. If forced to name the closest fit, Marcus stands out only because it owns its land and actually ran drive-in screenings during the pandemic, a real-estate-plus-exhibition model that rhymes with the drive-in thesis rather than being a drive-in bet [29][30].

Private operators and owners are the real universe. Ownership is almost entirely a matter of buying a private business or its land, not a stock. Identifiable operators (illustrative, not a complete census) include:

• West Wind Drive-Ins — family-owned, about six locations in California, Arizona, and Nevada; the largest drive-in chain [18][19].
• B&B Theatres — a family-owned chain that runs the seasonal Moberly Five & Drive in Missouri alongside an indoor complex [20].
• Sun South Theatres — operator behind Florida's Silver Moon and Joy-Lan drive-ins [21].
• Shankweiler's Drive-In (Pennsylvania) — the country's oldest operating drive-in (1934), bought by Matt McClanahan and Lauren McChesney [22].
• Bengies Drive-In (Maryland) — run by the multigenerational Vogel family [23].
• Goochland Drive-In (Virginia) — bought by James and Kathryn Munsey for the 2026 season [24].
• Malco Theatres (Memphis) — an indoor chain that also operates a long-running drive-in [18].

5. How the money works

A drive-in earns money on two main lines, and the split between them is the whole game:

Admissions − film rent − food cost − labor − occupancy and operating costs − maintenance capital.

1. Admissions. Charged per person or (often) per carload; typical adult pricing runs about $7–$12 [10]. Drive-ins traditionally show double features — two films on one admission — which boosts perceived value. But admissions are shared with the film's distributor. Under standard exhibition terms the theater keeps only about half of box-office receipts: the exhibitor's retained share is commonly around 45–55%, higher in a blockbuster's opening weeks and easing as a film ages [16][17]. UDITOA's owner guidance describes contractual film-rental terms ranging anywhere from 10% to 90% of box office depending on the title and deal — the full range behind that ~50% average [9]. Either way, the theater keeps less on a hot new release.

2. Concessions. This is the profit engine. Popcorn, soda, candy, hot food, and (where licensed) alcohol carry very high margins, and the theater keeps essentially all of it. Operator models put concessions at 40–60% of total revenue with gross margins of 70–90%+ [10]. The old exhibitor saying — "we sell tickets to sell popcorn" — is even truer at a drive-in, where a captive carful spends well on food. Additional lines include local advertising and sponsorships, private screenings, concerts and festivals, and swap meets or markets on the lot [9][10].

Cost structure and unit economics. The key costs are:

• Land — either owned outright (the common case) or leased; operator models illustrate ground rents on the order of ~$96,000/year [10]. Because parcels are large, property taxes and redevelopment temptation loom over everything.
• Film rental — the distributor's share of admissions, above.
• Seasonal labor — the low first-quarter payroll ($8.3M of a $34.5M annual total) reflects how many operators wind down in winter [2].
• Equipment and site — digital projector, screen structure, low-power FM transmitter, restrooms, ramps, paving, mowing, and traffic control [9].

Physically, UDITOA guidance points to roughly 10–14 acres for about 500 cars, with build costs (excluding land) of about $300,000–$500,000 for a single screen and $400,000–$800,000 for a twin — directional figures, not a current budget [9].

The metrics that actually matter to an operator are cars per screening versus lot capacity (utilization), concession spend per car, operating days per season (weather- and daylight-limited), the film-rental percentage of admissions, and weather cancellations. Many operators supplement the film calendar with ancillary events — swap meets, car shows, food-truck nights, concerts — that earn revenue on nights the screen would otherwise be dark [9][10]. And for a large share of owners, the most valuable line item never appears on the income statement at all: the market value of the land under the screen.

6. What drives demand

• The Hollywood slate. Drive-ins live off wide-release studio films and skew toward family and event movies. A strong summer of blockbusters and family titles fills lots; a thin calendar empties them. West Wind, for example, markets first-run films on the same day as indoor theaters [19]. The sector rides broader theatrical volatility — AMC reported preliminary North American box office of roughly $8.7 billion in 2024, down about 3% from 2023 (a market-wide figure, not drive-in-specific) [25].
• Weather and season length. This is an outdoor, mostly warm-months business. Rain, smoke, cold, and short days directly cut operating nights and attendance [11].
• Local population and access. A large audience within a practical driving radius, family demographics, and car access all help.
• Nostalgia and "experiential" spending. The durable tailwind is a distinctive, social, family-friendly night out that home streaming cannot replicate — the same impulse behind the 2020–2022 pandemic surge, when indoor cinemas were shut and drive-ins briefly captured the large majority of a much-reduced North American box office [11][13].
• Home-entertainment competition. The long structural headwind — from color TV and the VCR (videocassette recorder) decades ago to streaming today — is the ease of watching at home [11][12].
• Discretionary income and gas prices. As with any leisure outing, household budgets and the cost of the drive matter at the margin.

7. Regulation

Drive-ins face light but specific regulation:

• Land use and zoning. The dominant constraint is local: large-parcel zoning plus light-spill, noise, traffic-queue, signage, screen-height, sight-line, and stormwater rules tied to running a lit outdoor venue at night. UDITOA flags zoning, wind-resistant screen design, ramps, traffic control, lighting, and sanitation as the common development hurdles [9].
• Copyright and film licensing. Publicly performing a movie requires authorization from the copyright owner or distributor [33]; operators negotiate titles, rental percentages, run requirements, and schedules by private contract [9].
• Content visible from public roads. Because a giant screen can be seen from nearby streets, drive-ins were historically targeted by local nudity/obscenity ordinances. The U.S. Supreme Court limited that in Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville (1975), striking down on First Amendment grounds a law banning nudity on screens visible from public places [31].
• Audio broadcast. In-car FM audio is sent by a low-power transmitter operated under the Federal Communications Commission's (FCC) unlicensed low-power (Part 15) rules, which cap signal strength to the immediate lot — so most drive-ins need no broadcast license [35].
• Accessibility and standard business rules. Theaters are places of public accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), so sites must address accessible parking, routes, ticketing, and restrooms, especially when building or altering [34]. Food-service health codes and liquor licensing apply as at any venue.
• Antitrust history. The Department of Justice (DOJ) ended the 1948 Paramount consent decrees in 2020, lifting old restrictions such as block booking; the practical effect on tiny drive-ins is minimal, and film access now depends on current contracts and distributor strategy [32].

8. Competitive dynamics and consolidation

The competitive picture is unusual: highly fragmented at the bottom, lightly concentrated at the top, and shrinking overall.

• Local, not national, competition. A site's effective market is bounded by driving time, road access, population density, weather, and nearby alternatives. Drive-ins are geographically dispersed in rural and suburban areas where land is cheap, so they rarely compete head-to-head [4][8].
• Concentration without a giant. A few multi-site operators (West Wind, Malco, and regional owners) give the top 4 firms about a third of revenue [4][18], but there is no national consolidator and no roll-up thesis. The strongest competitive advantages are ownership or long-term control of well-located, hard-to-replicate land; a strong local brand; reliable digital projection; high-quality concessions; first-run access; and event programming.
• "Consolidation" here means attrition, not acquisition. The count falls because sites close — usually redeveloped — not because a buyer sweeps them up. The 2013 digital-projection transition was a defining shakeout: when studios stopped shipping 35-millimeter film prints, operators had to buy digital projectors costing roughly $60,000–$100,000 each; some marginal drive-ins closed rather than pay, while others crowdfunded the conversion [14][15]. UDITOA cites rising land values, retiring owners, difficulty getting first-run films, and competition from other entertainment as the historical causes of closures [8].
• Barriers to entry/exit. Entry is capital- and land-intensive with a slow, seasonal payback; exit is easy and often lucrative (sell the land). That asymmetry is why the industry keeps contracting even as surviving operators do fine.

9. Risks

• Structural decline and redevelopment pressure. The core risk is that the land's "highest and best use" is housing, retail, or industry — not a theater. Rising suburban land values have been the single biggest driver of closures for decades and the pressure persists [12].
• Film supply and the shrinking theatrical window. Drive-ins need a steady flow of wide releases; a weak slate, unfavorable booking terms, or studios sending films to streaming sooner erodes the exclusivity that fills lots.
• Weather and single-site concentration. An operator with one location has no diversification against a rained-out season or a regional downturn; storms, smoke, heat, and short seasons can erase a large share of annual cash flow.
• Fixed costs and capital spikes. Rent, taxes, insurance, and maintenance run even when screenings are canceled, and screens, projectors, sound, ramps, and paving need periodic reinvestment (the next projector upgrade is a real line item).
• Substitution and input inflation. Streaming and big home screens reduce the need to leave home; food and labor inflation can squeeze concession margins if prices can't rise without hurting attendance.
• Aging fleet and owner succession. Much of the surviving stock is decades old with aging owners; succession and reinvestment are open questions.
• Property tax drift and illiquidity. The same land appreciation that makes a site valuable raises its tax bill on a low-revenue business, and private buyers may struggle to exit quickly when value hinges on specialized land use.

10. How to invest and outlook

Public routes — read-through, not exposure. There is no clean public way to own this industry. Broad movie-exhibition exposure is available through AMC, Cinemark, Marcus, Reading International, and IMAX, but these are indoor businesses and drive-ins do not move their numbers. Use them to track theatrical signals — attendance, average ticket pricing, concession spend, film-rental percentages, rent, capital spending, and debt — not as drive-in proxies. Marcus is the closest analog only because it owns its real estate and ran drive-in screenings in 2020 [29][30]. Treat any of these as a bet on theatrical moviegoing generally.

Private routes — where the real exposure lives. Separate the operating business from the real estate, and underwrite both:

1. Buy and operate a drive-in. These are small-business acquisitions (comfortably under the SBA's $12.5M size standard [5]), typically owner-operated, with returns driven by concession spend, season length, and event programming.
2. Buy the land. For many sites the underlying parcel is the asset and the theater is a low-cost way to hold it — a call option on future development, with a nostalgia business paying the carry.
3. Diversify the venue. The best operators treat the lot as a flexible outdoor-events space (concerts, markets, car shows), not just a screen [9][10].

Due-diligence checklist: verified title, lease terms, and alternative land value; zoning and permits; local population and driving-radius demographics; monthly attendance and weather history; film contracts and booking history; per-car ticket and concession spend; labor, insurance, taxes, utilities, and maintenance; screen and projector condition; event and sponsorship potential; and the owner's succession plans.

Outlook (forward-looking judgment). After the pandemic pulled the count up and then normalized, the industry looks likely to stabilize around roughly 300 sites rather than either collapse or grow — a small, durable niche sustained by nostalgia, family demand, and experiential spending [13]. Survival will keep favoring operators who own their land outright, keep concession volume high, and program beyond movies. The near-term swing factors are the strength of the Hollywood slate, how fast the theatrical-to-streaming window keeps shrinking, and local land-value pressure. The most attractive opportunity is site-specific: a well-located, under-managed theater with defensible land control and multiple revenue streams. The least attractive is a highly leveraged operator renting marginal land and relying only on summer ticket sales. Either way, this remains a private, real-estate-anchored, lifestyle-scale business — not a public-market growth sector.

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Sources

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2. U.S. Census Bureau. "County Business Patterns: 2023 — NAICS 512132 (establishments, employment, annual and first-quarter payroll)." https://www.census.gov/data/datasets/2023/econ/cbp/2023-cbp.html
3. U.S. Census Bureau. "2022 Economic Census, EC2251BASIC — NAICS 512132 (firms, receipts)." https://data.census.gov/table/ECNBASIC2022.EC2251BASIC
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25. AMC Entertainment Holdings. "2024 Form 10-K" (North American box office ~$8.7B in 2024; admissions and food-and-beverage economics). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/1411579/000141157925000042/amc-20241231x10k.htm
26. Cinemark Holdings. "2024 Form 10-K" (attendance, ticket pricing, film-rental and concession costs). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/885975/000095017025022756/cnk-20241231.htm
27. The Marcus Corporation. "2025 Form 10-K" (theater + hotel/resort; owns theater real estate). https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/62234/000006223426000011/mcs-20251231.htm
28. National CineMedia. "Company Overview" (cinema advertising platform). https://nationalcinemedia.gcs-web.com/corporate-governance/overview
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30. TK Architects. "The Re-emergence of the Drive-in Movies / Marcus Drive-Ins" (2020 outdoor cinema). 2020. https://tkarch.com/marcus-drive-ins/
31. Justia — U.S. Supreme Court. "Erznoznik v. City of Jacksonville, 422 U.S. 205 (1975)." https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/422/205/
32. U.S. Department of Justice. "Federal Court Terminates Paramount Consent Decrees." 2020. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/federal-court-terminates-paramount-consent-decrees
33. U.S. Copyright Office. "What Is Copyright?" (public-performance right). https://www.copyright.gov/what-is-copyright/
34. U.S. Department of Justice. "2010 ADA Standards for Accessible Design." https://www.ada.gov/law-and-regs/design-standards/2010-stds/
35. Federal Communications Commission. "Low Power Radio — General Information / Part 15 unlicensed operation." https://www.fcc.gov/media/radio/low-power-radio-general-information