Barco Drive-In Theatre — Local services in Lamar

Let’s be honest - if you grew up coming here or have lived in Lamar your whole life, you probably cannot objectively review this place. As someone with no nostalgia to feed off of when coming here, I found it to be overhyped - it’s just not a good place to see a movie if you want to actually watch the movie (maybe the second time but definitely not the first time). The people that run this place are lovely, but they seem to be understaffed. Case in point, throughout all of a movie they had a line backing out the door and across a good part of the campus at their concession stand and to a lesser extent their bathrooms. This directly affected everyone nearby as we were parked close to that area and so many people talking and yelling while in line was incredibly distracting, and we were at least 60 feet away - maybe it should be relocated to the back of the lot if it’s hard to keep up, and maybe more restrooms should be added. The screen is quite small - I am used to Carthage’s Route 66 Drive In Screen, which is substantial; Barco’s screen is like watching a movie on your phone, if you set your phone up 3 feet in front of you. Also hated how 30 minutes into the movie, they were still letting people drive in with their lights on. For what this place is, it’s cheap and probably amazing to the people in Lamar that have nothing to do for entertainment but I would recommend going to Carthage instead. This place has potential but without improvement it’s below average at best. I get that they might not make a lot off of this theater but I think saving to make improvements would be worth...

I have been going to this theater since I was a very young child back in the 80's and early 90's. I love the drive in and prefer it over the indoor theaters. When I first started going, you still had to use the speakers that hooked onto your car window but I actually like it playing through the radio better as you can adjust the sound to your liking. I really hope that it's able to be replaced after the storm damage took it out. If it's not, it will be really sad to see it go. It's a wonderful experience that everyone should be able to enjoy. Being able to sit in your vehicle or in the bed of your truck or lawn chairs or whatever makes you comfortable and seeing the stars, feeling the wind on your skin and just relaxing while watching a movie, spending time with a loved one and being able to converse about the movie without disturbing other movie goer's, it's all just a magical atmosphere. There's a small playground area for kids to play during intermission and before the movie starts, the staff are always so friendly and helpful and the concession stand always has something more than just popcorn and candy which makes it even better. If it's able to be replaced, I highly recommend coming to see a movie or two here as I'm sure you'll enjoy it but come early as there is usually a pretty long...

Drove all the way from Springfield for a fun and different date night activity; my husband and I saw Barbie and Indiana Jones. The man at the ticket booth was very friendly and helpful, offering several suggestions for things to try at the concessions stand. (We regretted already having eaten dinner)

There are a lot of commercials before the start of the first movie. It's been about 10 years since I've been to a drive-in, I don't recall so many ads, but I assume this is largely out of the owner's control. (Not to mention that I'll gladly sit through ads, if the revenue helps support a historic landmark in any way)

The sound and picture quality was top-notch, and did not falter at all through rain and some thunderstorms.

The bathrooms are very very small and not exactly accessible by today's standards, as they were built for a different era. If you are a person of substantial size, either in height or girth, know that you will likely need to duck or squeeze through the doorway sideways to enter the facilities. Plan accordingly.

Sadly our work schedules don't allow for us to go to movies on weekend nights very often. But we're already looking forward to coming back next year! This was one of my favorite memories from...