Ipswich landmark the Tivoli Drive-In has announced its immediate and permanent closure, bringing to an end a near 50-year history of drive-in cinema.

The cinema, which opened in 1976, posted on social media that “we have been forced [to] bring forward the inevitable”.

The statement by Pastor Fred Muys, the CEO of Goodness Enterprises, operators of the drive-in, said that “weeks on end of storms and rain and continuing forecasts of wet weather” were partly to blame, as was “a lack of new-release movies being produced for cinemas”.

The last picture show: The Tivoli Drive-In, Ipswich, has closed after 49 years. Credit: Facebook

Costly upgrades for the cinema’s projector and car park were also deciding factors.

Muys told this masthead the community response to the closure had been ove

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