Cleaning and Enjoying Our 16-Foot Screen

As the owner of an inflatable movie screen from Open Air Cinema, you'll regularly find yourself wondering how best to tackle the necessary task of cleaning your projection surface. After all, these screens get used out of doors, where there are bugs, dust, and all kinds of gunk. When these things accumulate on your screen, cleaning can be a real headache.

Cleaning: Keep it Simple

Cleaning can be a daunting task when you don't know where to start. To save you the trouble of trial and error, the Open Air Cinema team in Ukraine spent a weekend practicing the best methods used to give your screen a deep cleaning. Believe us, our screen definitely needed it. After an intense year of regular screenings all over Eastern Europe, we had our work cut out for us. Our guiding principle, above everything else, is to keep it simple. Often, a simple rinse with warm water is more than enough to get your screen sparkling white again. If water doesn't seem to do the trick by itself, try mixing in a mild detergent. Be sure the detergent isn't too strong - our screens are made from a poly-cotton blend that doesn't respond well to stronger chemicals.

Fun with a High-Pressure Washer

There are a couple of ways you can go about the actual act of cleaning. In the past, we've simply scrubbed gently with a damp cloth. However, recently a friend of ours came over to check out our screen and suggested that we use a high-pressure sprayer. We ended up being so excited by the fast, effective results that we couldn't resist treating him, his friends, and his family to a screening! We brought the same 16-foot screen that he helped us clean to his backyard later that night. Despite how typically-sized his backyard was, our screen was a perfect fit. As we waited for sundown, we put on an impromptu dance party. The kids got wound up pretty quickly. But when the show started, the captivating magic of cinema under the stars hushed them in their awe pretty quickly.