Brisbane, Australia: Outdoor Movies Shown at the Rooftop Cinema at the Limes Hotel

Brisbane's first commercial rooftop cinema operates atop Limes, a boutique hotel in Fortitude Valley, with an adjoining rooftop bar. Owner Damian Griffiths launched it while busy opening the hotel itself, doing almost no marketing -- and found word-of-mouth alone was sufficient. “We've had people come from the coast; whole cinema nights being booked by groups of friends and social clubs,” he said.

The film programme is flexible: one group of stockbrokers booked Wall Street, then called back to switch to National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation. Cocktails, city views, and deckchairs complete the setting -- Brisbane's answer to the rooftop outdoor cinema culture long established in New York. The venue navigated considerable “bureaucratic hoops and hurdles” to realise the concept, but the result speaks for itself.