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Outdoor Movie Theater

It has been a dream of mine to set up a movie theater with a projector in the backyard. I read about doing it for a birthday party in an American Girl magazine when I was like eight and swear it never got out of my head. Unfortunately, every time I looked at projectors, they were so expensive.

Last year for Christmas, I went into full swing trying to make it work. Note, this was extremely last minute. I dragged my mom to Best Buy and we sadly decided spending two thousand dollars on a stupid projector was a terrible waste of money. Then I was scouring eBay and Craigslist and even emailed a few friends from high school thinking someone must have a projector. It didn’t end up working out though.

This year, I was proactive and started the hunt for a projector early. A solid three days before flying to Florida, haha. I read a ton of articles and watched many reviews on Youtube before deciding on this little guy.

Outdoor Movie Theater

It’s unbelievable and only $80!!!! Considering the price tag on other projectors, this was a huge bargain. It was so cheap that I actually had very, very low expectations for it working. I figured it would “work,” but that the quality wouldn’t be great.

Instead, we have what will surely be a new family tradition.

If you also end up buying the projector, here are a few of my “field notes” for setting it up right:

1) The projector was surprisingly simple to set up and there’s a few ways you can connect your media device. For me, the easiest was to use an HDMI cable (not included) connected to my laptop. We have Wifi in the backyard so we could stream Netflix or play a movie downloaded from iTunes (which is what we did).

2) We hung a King size sheet up between trees using thumbtacks. The projector could easily broadcast a bigger picture, but we didn’t have a big enough sheet!!! (And we did it in front of our pool so we couldn’t pull the stand back any farther or else it’d be in the pool.)

3) The projector techincally has sound, but I had heard through the Youtube reviews that the sound quality isn’t that great. So… I kept the sound input on my laptop, BUT I used my mom’s Bluetooth speaker (that I got her for Christmas last year!) to stream the audio. And the best part is that way, my laptop and projector were across the pool, but we had the speaker next to us on the ground!

Dive In Movie Theater Projector

The movie night was a huge hit. My entire family (including my dad who’s a skeptic) loved the whole set up. We curled up outside and watched Elf while we snacked on goodies. (We were so full from dinner but somehow found room for popcorn!) Our family friends who come over every Thanksgiving joined us too!

Outdoor Projector Movie Theater

Anyway, if you want to set up an outdoor movie theater on somewhat of a budget, I highly recommend the projector highly enough! My family and I can’t wait to set it up again for another movie night!

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16 Comments

Taylor

AMAZING! My sister actually debated for a while on whether or not she wanted to invest in a projector, and she ended up getting that same one! She has vaulted ceilings in her bedroom, so we are able to display the movies on the wall perfectly. It’s so worth the $80!! We also play the sound through the laptop, but I can’t believe I never thought of using a portable speaker! Great idea 🙂

xo, Taylor
http://www.taylorashleyblog.com

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Carla

Can I just say, I love your mom. She is just a joy to watch in your YouTube Videos. I really think Meesh should have her own blog and YouTube! PS: tell her I love the hair!

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Carmel Elizabeth

This looks amazing! I’ve always wanted to do an outdoor movie night, ever since we did one at a friend’s pool several years back. Too cool! I’m going to have to snag that projector… 🙂

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Danielle

I have read your blog since the beginning, but I’ve never commented! Thanks for the suggestion. I just bought one!!!

ps~ I love your gift guides this time of the year. As a recently single woman, I’m using gift guides to spoil ME this year!!!!!!

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