Penny Browning is "really sad to say goodbye forever" to Dubbo Westview Drive-In, but that's what she and a capacity crowd will do on Saturday.
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
The iconic outdoor cinema on the city's outskirts will open for its final nights on Friday and Saturday, which Mrs Browning says is "just devastating, really".
She quickly secured tickets to the last event, set in place after the land on which the drive-in operates on was sold in January.
General admission and gold class tickets to the final night sold out more than a week ahead of the screening.
"We'll be at Grease, we're going for the finale, wouldn't miss it," Mrs Browning said.
"It's just lovely, it's old-school, it's been quite safe with all the COVID stuff because you're still socialising, but you're outside," she said.
"...it's just lovely for people to get together.
"It's just iconic, it's such a beautiful place to go, and create memories, but not for long."
Three generations of her family have enjoyed the attraction, most recently at the weekend for her father's 70th birthday, to see his favourite movie, Smokey and the Bandit.
"The three boys, Mick, myself and Mum and Dad all went out and watched The Bandit for the last time," Mrs Browning said.
As a child, Mrs Browning only ever saw The Muppets in the drive-in's original heyday before it closed in the 1980s.
She has loved its revived form.
"Connecting with people you wouldn't normally see, and just creating memories with my family," she said.
But for husband Mick the past five years have been an opportunity to return to the scenes of his childhood.
Mick's mum worked out there when he was little, so it's a really special place to him...
- Drive-in enthusiast Penny Browning
"Mick's mum worked out there when he was little, so it's a really special place to him, he spent a lot of time sitting in the ticket box while Sandra was selling tickets and working in the cafeteria and things like that," Mrs Browning said.
"So it's been a really important place for him and his family... I love the atmosphere and he's got the special memories.
"Rex Bartel [who ran the drive-in] was a very important part of Mick's childhood, because Mick's mum and two of his aunties all worked out there.
"It's a long-running connection with us."
Mrs Browning hopes the weekend goes off "with a bang", for the sake of drive-in operator Jason Yelverton and his team who she says have doing an "amazing job", giving a whole generation the drive-in experience.
"I just want it to be massive for them, and a huge success because it's absolutely incredible what they've done, for our town, with putting it all together and pushing through all the red tape and COVID, and everything else," she said.
"We're so lucky they've done what they've done.
"Really sad to say goodbye forever."
The Friday night screening of Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone has fewer than 30 tickets remaining.