The Big Deck Chair is in the open-air Royal Theatre in Winton, one of 2 remaining open-air theatres of its type remaining in Australia. The other is in Broome.
Not long celebrated 100 years, the Royal Theatre was first established in 1918.
The theatre is open as a museum you can wander through from the Gift and Gem and Gem Walk. The best time to go though is on Wednesday nights between April and October for a nostalgia night.
During intermissions (remember them?), you are invited to go see inside the projection room and be shown what is involved in operating them.
Luke Miller was the projectionist showing us on the night we were there. He happened to be on the tour to Lark Quarry with us too, learning to be a guide for that as well.
Other nights have screenings also with more recent movies shown, such as Black Hawk Down and Venom.
The 18 metre high Big Deck Chair was constructed by the Free Masons Taskforce of Victoria for an event. They didn’t know what to do with it when one of the members visited the theatre and through it would be a good home for it.
There was another big deck chair in Mildura, Victoria, but we’re not sure if it is still there after it was removed in 2016. It is only two-thirds of the Big Deck Chair in Winton.
We have used a photo from Wikipedia for the feature photo for the time being as we have some photos stored away and are not accessible right now. We’ll update it when we get the photos again.
See the Winton Movies Inc Facebook page for details of events coming up. There are special nights in addition to the Wednesday nostalgia nights.