D.Live transforms car park into drive-in cinema

Utilising unused space near the Messe exhibition grounds, Autokino Düsseldorf aims to bring some variety to locked-down Dusseldorfers

By IQ on 16 Apr 2020

Cars parked at the Autokino Düsseldorf

image © Anke Hesse

German venue operator D.Live has transformed a car park near the shuttered Messe Dusseldorf exhibition centre into a lockdown-friendly drive-in cinema.

With Autokino Düsseldorf (Drive-in Cinema Dusseldorf), D.Live aims to provide Dusseldorfers with “nice experiences in this time of social distancing”, says the company, by showing movies in the P1 car park, which is usually occupied by exhibitors at the Messe.

At the Autokino, which features Europe’s biggest portable screen, tickets are scanned through car windows, while food orders are to delivered to straight to patrons’ vehicles.

:The drive-in cinema is the perfect solution”

The cinema opened on 8 April with a screening of Udo Lindenberg biopic Lindenberg! Mach dein Ding, attended by some 1,000 people in 500 cars. It also hosted Easter services over the Easter weekend.

D.Live managing director Michael Brill says: “With so many restrictions, worries and frustration, we all have a need for variety, distraction and a little entertainment more than ever. The drive-in cinema is the perfect solution to both comply with the necessary rules on the one hand, and to get finally get out [of the house] on the other.”

D.Live – whose venues include Dusseldorf’s 51,500-seat Merkur Spiel-Arena, 12,500-capacity ISS Dome and 7,500-cap. Mitsubishi Electric Halle – is the only non-UK member of Oak View Group’s International Venue Alliance, which it joined in October 2019.

Get more stories like this in your inbox by signing up for IQ Index, IQ’s free email digest of essential live music industry news.