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25/12/2005: "QUEENSLAND SEAFARI .......featured Aquarius film footage"
Rex Theatre, North Mackay during our first Queensland film shows. Admission prices have changed considerably since.
The projector was set-up in the ticket box and 'shone' though an open doorway in order to fill the screen top and bottom. The upstairs bio box was obviously not available.
At first only the older and almost run-down theatres would accept our 16mm film shows, when they saw the box office figures, all regional cinema's welcomed us.
TV advertising was possible and affordable in these areas. With TV ads the box office figures were sensational, far surpassing the big budget films of the era.
We could only get three day seasons during mid-week as Hollywood films had the weekends booked and under contracts.
We made up for this by running three screenings each day and inviting schools to attend.
They arrived by the bus-load from 'miles' away - patriotic to Queensland and The Great Barrier Reef on the big screen.
Thousands of children screaming in delight as Jocelyn did her famous underwater bubble swim
(Those old Queensland single-screen Birch, Carroll and Coyle theatres held between 800 and 1200 seats).
A few ads on Disneyland and in the local news guaranteed huge crowds. It's not that easy today.
