Mandurah club appeals for return of Mandurah outdoor cinemas

The Mandurah Surf Life Saving Club wants to bring back the cinema night – but can not carry the weight of the event on its shoulders. 

“We are not in the position to run in its entirety,” said Mandurah Surf Life Saving Club president Elaine Daniels.

“Mandurah doesn’t have anything like this, in terms of outdoor cinemas.”

The Mandurah outdoor community cinemas began in January 2014 when developer Mirvac organised a community outdoor event at the Quarry Adventure Park in Meadow Springs.  

Mirvac took on the organisation, sponsorship and promotion of the event and engaged local organisations to be part of it.

The movies ran for five nights, managed by the Mandurah Rotary Club.

As a local not for profit group, the Mandurah Surf Life Saving Club was engaged to provide first aid and run a sausage sizzle in return for a share of the profits.

“For the next three years the outdoor cinemas at the Quarry Adventure Park was a very popular event with movies screening for 10 nights in January 2015, 2016 and 2017, drawing crowds of up to 300 people at some of the screenings,” Ms Daniels said. 

In 2017, Telethon Community Cinemas took on the project and increased the screen sessions, which Ms Daniels said was not manageable for the surf club, who had eight volunteers at the time.

She said the club managed to get enough volunteers with the Mandurah Rotary Club who shared the load, but the movies were unfortunately pulled last minute due to poor ticket sales. 

“Since 2014 the Mandurah Outdoor Community Cinemas had become a wonderful community event, growing in popularity as more and more people heard about it and came to experience for themselves the joy of watching movies in such a lovely outdoor location at a price that was very affordable for families.”

Ms Daniels asked for sponsors to express interest to mhslscpresident@gmail.com.