How to Drive-In the Southington Way

Veterans, skip ahead if you have your setup dialed in. Newcomers, here is the lot's open secret: there is no right way to set up your spot, and most regulars have tried two or three configurations before landing on theirs.

Pick your setup

The lot fills up Saturday after Saturday with every configuration the volunteers have ever seen, and they have seen most of them. A few of the common ones:

• SUV or hatchback: pop the rear hatch, throw an inflatable mattress and pillows in the back, sit in the open trunk with your feet hanging out. The hatch becomes a roof.
• Pickup truck: lawn chairs in the bed with blankets, or an air mattress for the truck bed and a pile of pillows. Tailgate down so the kids can swing their feet. Bring a portable radio if you are riding in the bed. Plenty of trucks have fixed rear glass that does not open, so the cab stereo stays in the cab and you end up watching a silent movie three feet from your own speakers.
• Sedan: lawn chairs in front of the bumper, or blankets on the hood and the dashboard as a headrest.
• Lawn-chair walk-ins ($5): chairs anywhere behind the parked cars. Cheapest way in, best mobility once you are there.
• Pavilion picnic tables: bring your food, sit at a table, watch the screen from the pavilion. Good option if you would rather be on a chair than in a car.

Make an evening of it

Some folks show up at the 6 PM gate with a folding table, a tablecloth, a picnic basket, and call it a date night under the stars. Some bring a deck of cards and play between the rows of parked cars while the sun drops (there are no trailers; the feature goes straight on at dusk). Some bring three generations and a cooler and a tray of lasagna and turn the lot into a family reunion. There is room for all of it.

For the kids (or just for burning off energy)

There are about ninety minutes of daylight between the 6 PM gate and the dusk showtime. The lot sits inside Recreation Park, so there is a basketball court, a soccer field, and plenty of open grass right next door. Bring a ball, a frisbee, a stack of cones. Run the kids out before you ask them to sit through two hours of a movie. The host nonprofit often runs a pre-show kids activity too, so check at the gate when you pull in.

What to bring

• Cash. The gate and the snack bar are both cash only.
• Bug spray. Mid-summer, the mosquitoes find the lot.
• Citronella candles. Nice for the picnic table or the open tailgate.
• Blankets. Even July nights cool off fast once the sun drops.
• A trash bag. Take what you brought when you leave. The DECA kids will be cleaning up enough already.
• A handheld FM radio (optional). Useful if you are sitting in a lawn chair away from the car. Tunes to 89.9 FM same as your dashboard.

Drive-in etiquette

For three hours on a Saturday everyone in the lot is a neighbor, parked a few feet from each other under the same sky. The list below is just about being decent to the people in the rows around you.

• A friendly note on headlights.Simple way to think about it: if you face the screen, your lights kill the picture. If you face the crowd, your lights kill the crowd. Either way, flip them off as soon as you park, and daytime running lights too if your car will let you. If yours won't, a handheld FM radio plus a turned-off engine does the trick. The lot's broadcast at 89.9 FM carries through the radios in the cars next to you, so you can still pick up the movie.
• If your running lights have no off switch, look in the menu. They are often not on the headlight stalk at all. On a Jeep Compass the setting was buried in the car's own dash display menu, under the vehicle settings, and the lights went dark the moment it was switched off. If yours seem to be stuck on, spend two minutes in that menu before you decide the car will not let you.
• A cheap battery radio solves most of this. It means you are not running the engine all night to keep a stereo alive, you are not draining a battery to do it, and it does not matter whether your car will let you kill its running lights. Any battery powered FM set picks up 89.9 from just about anywhere on the lot, and it travels to a lawn chair or a truck bed, which a dashboard does not. They turn up secondhand at Goodwill, and Home Depot, Target and Walmart usually have something on a shelf. Check stock online before you drive over, because the cheap ones come and go.
• Park where the gate crew points you.They stage cars by height so a Suburban does not block a Civic. Pro tip if you are coming with another car and want to park together: arrive at the same time, or wait out front and pull in as a pair. Once you are in the queue, the crew puts you where you fit, not next to your friend three cars back. And remember the gate crew are all volunteers from that night's host nonprofit, out on a Saturday for a cause they care about. A wave and a thank you goes a long way.
• Engine off after gates open. If you need to run the AC, ask a volunteer first. Some engines idle quietly; some do not. And if your battery dies from running the radio, no need to worry. Pop your hood at the end of the movie and a drive-in volunteer will get you going again.
• Keep the light low if you need to walk around. A face-down phone screen or a dim flashlight beats a full LED once the feature starts, and your drive-in neighbors will thank you for it.
• Keep your sound on the radio, not a speaker. Everyone in the lot is on the same broadcast, so anything playing out loud sits a beat off from the cars around you and turns into an echo for whole rows of people. One second of drift is all it takes. If you cannot hear, a radio is the fix, not volume.
• Talk softly once the movie begins. The lot is closer-quartered than it looks, especially with windows down.
• Take your trash with you. The volunteers will be cleaning up enough already.