Dive-In Movie on Friday!
By Jeff Moffitt
@moffittjc (128824)
Gainesville, Florida
October 17, 2016 8:50pm CST
I am getting ready to close down one of our city's public swimming pools for the season, as it is an unheated, outdoor pool, and now that we are starting to see colder nights here in Florida, the water temperature is quickly dropping. So, as part of our last "hoorah" for the season, we are holding a bunch of special events in and around the pool this weekend. All the events are dog-themed, so we are promoting this weekend with the tagline "The park has gone to the dogs."
We will kick off the weekend on Friday night with a dive-in movie, appropriately titled "The Dog Who Saved Halloween."
A dive-in movie is where you set up a large outdoor movie screen on the pool deck, and set it up in such a way that the best (or only) way to see it is if you are in the pool. Participants who come to the pool to watch the movie will float around on rafts or tubes in the pool while they watch the movie.
This will be our third and final dive-in movie of the season, and we expect several hundred people to attend. To make it a festive movie atmosphere, we'll also be selling hotdogs, popcorn and drinks on the pool deck. And every attendee will get to take home a glow stick as a souvenir!
Have you ever been to an event like this before?
11 people like this
11 responses
@infatuatedbby (94909)
• United States
18 Oct 16
That sounds like a neat event! Never heard of any here, but it sounds like fun! 
2 people like this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
I've been offering dive-in movies for years. They are really fun to do, and they are easy to set up. They are also very popular with the public!
2 people like this
@infatuatedbby (94909)
• United States
18 Oct 16
@moffittjc That's a good idea! But I wouldn't be in the water the entire time. I wouldn't want to be a prune at the end of the movie 
2 people like this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
@infatuatedbby That's what happens to most of the people...they come out of the water looking like prunes! Most of the adults will only stay in the water for a little while, and then either get out of the pool and sit on the deck, or sit on the side of the pool. But the kids, they'll stay in for the entire time, and still don't want to get out even after the movie is over!
2 people like this
@5thHouse (1678)
• Sheffield, England
18 Oct 16
That's a clever idea, the dive-in movie. The last time I was in an open air pool was in Ingleton in the North Yorkshire Dales on holiday last year. Despite being summer, it absolutely poured. Most people got out of the pool and huddled under the shelters but we thought, "how much wetter could we possibly get?" and opted to stay in the water. It was certainly a new experience for me to be swimming in the rain (another good pun perhaps - 'swimming in the rain'?) but the worst part was getting out and having to get changed in the freezing changing rooms afterwards. We don't have many open air pools in England for obvious reasons.
2 people like this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
At our first dive-in movie at the beginning of the summer, it started raining about halfway through the movie. Everybody in the pool scrambled to get out and get under the tents and pavilions. We were laughing so hard....they were already wet from swimming in the pool, so why were they trying to get out of the rain? Luckily, it was a brief shower that lasted about 10 minutes, and then everyone was back in the water again!
@BelleStarr (61463)
• United States
18 Oct 16
I have never heard of this ours up here just close after labor day
1 person likes this
@BelleStarr (61463)
• United States
19 Oct 16
@moffittjc Our weather usually really starts to plunge and with the kids back to school, it just works best I guess here.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
@BelleStarr When you come to Florida, we'll count how many pools are still open!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
I have one pool that I close down after Labor Day. It's my smallest pool, and we don't get enough attendance after Labor Day to justify keeping it open.
1 person likes this
@JamesHxstatic (29410)
• Eugene, Oregon
18 Oct 16
Sounds like a great event! How big is that pool though?
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
This particular pool is 595,000 gallons, and can hold 330 people. It's an Olympic-size pool. It's our second biggest pool.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
@JamesHxstatic Our biggest pool is 700,000 gallons, and holds 440 people. In the summer, both of those pools hit capacity every day! When we host the Sunshine State Games Swimming Championships every June, we often will have over 1000 people on our pool deck!
1 person likes this
@JamesHxstatic (29410)
• Eugene, Oregon
19 Oct 16
@moffittjc That is a very big pool!
1 person likes this
@Happy2BeMe (99353)
• Canada
18 Oct 16
Very cool. I have never heard of such an event before. Sounds like you have a fun filled weekend ahead.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
Dive-In Movies are one of my favorite types of special events to run. They are so easy to set up and do! We do everything ourselves, but if you really wanted to keep it simple, there are companies out there that do nothing but put on these types of events. So, if I wanted to, I could hire someone to come in and run the event for us. But, like I said, it is so easy to operate that we just run it ourselves. Our lifeguards love it, because we let them get in the water with the patrons, instead of having to sit up on the lifeguard chairs.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
@Happy2BeMe It is fun to see so many families come out to enjoy the pool and the movie together. We keep the admission price low enough so that large families can still afford to come out and have a good time!
1 person likes this
@Happy2BeMe (99353)
• Canada
18 Oct 16
@moffittjc I just love the idea of it all. Sounds the great way to spend time together.
1 person likes this
@saulgoodman (2643)
• Dundee, Scotland
18 Oct 16
Got to admit i have never been to a drive in movie before.
Sounds like a cool idea floating around on a raft watching a movie.
Dont think that would catch on here.
Outdoor pools are abit cold all the year round.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
Yes, I'm pretty sure living in sub-tropical paradise here in Florida helps my cause! With our warm weather and sunny days, swimming pools are a must for just about everyone!
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
@saulgoodman Okay, that's pretty gross!
...but the idea could possible work, if you could convince everyone to pee at the same time! haha
1 person likes this
@saulgoodman (2643)
• Dundee, Scotland
18 Oct 16
@moffittjc
The water here is so cold I bet loads of people piss in the pool to warm it up
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
Our most attended dive-in movie we ever had was about 5 years ago when we showed Jaws on Halloween night. We had about 500 people show up for that movie (and the pool can only hold 330 people), so we had people piled everywhere on the deck and in the pool. It was the best, although my lifeguards were stressed out from having to watch so many people!
@LovingMyBabies (85923)
• Valdosta, Georgia
18 Oct 16
I very much wish I have been to one of these but I never have been. I hope this weekend turns out wonderful! =)
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
18 Oct 16
Thank you! I wonder if the City of Jax does dive-in movies at any of their pools? Do you have a city pool anywhere nearby where you live?
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
We have big outdoor speakers mounted to each light pole all the way around the deck, so the sound is fantastic. When the pool is open during the day, we play a local radio station so the pool patrons will have music to listen to while they are enjoying their day.
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
@TheHorse We change the stations each day so that people don't get offended that we're only playing one genre of music. We typically rotate country, top 40/pop, and classic rock. That seems to keep most everybody happy.
@TheHorse (238268)
• Walnut Creek, California
19 Oct 16
@moffittjc What kind of music do you mostly play?
1 person likes this
@moffittjc (128824)
• Gainesville, Florida
19 Oct 16
It is definitely a fun time! And we always try to show current, relevant movies that will draw people out. The one we'll be showing Friday is not a movie I've ever even heard of, but it ties in nicely to both the dog theme, and the Halloween theme, so we thought it was appropriate to show.
