It is a truth universally acknowledged that everything is better under a warm summer’s night sky. And that’s just one of the reasons the Music and Movies at Infinity Park series has been such a resounding success for the last 13 years.

Hosted at the 16-acre, indoor-outdoor stadium, the series is trying something new this year, with the blending of free concerts and movies together for a special series of events that will also feature food trucks.

“It made sense to combine the music and movies and move these free events to Friday nights, when most families are celebrating the end of the week with pizza and a movie anyway,” said Pam Dunbar, director of marketing with Infinity Park and the City of Glendale. “We thought that adding the band before the movie and switching the genre of the movies to a mix of classics and popular new movies would help to grow the current audience and potentially add younger adults and couples looking for a fun date night.”

Dunbar shared with us the plans for the new season, what audiences will gain from the experience and more:

Tell me a little about the history of the event

Since 2009, Infinity Park has been hosting Monday Movie Madness. It started as a community event to give back to local residents and those in the area. Over the years, Monday Movie Madness’ reputation grew and we have hosted more than a thousand people at some of our movie events. Along with local sponsors, and food trucks on hand, the event has become a metro-wide family favorite.

What is exciting about this year’s roster?

We knew that we wanted to pull away from a full roster of animated movies. And, since we were incorporating bands, we decided it would be fun to choose movies that could have a matching or themed music component. With our lineup, we were able to find bands that would approach the music with the movie in mind. For example, our first movie is “Happy Gilmore” and The Dumm Friends League band will play plenty of fun 70’s music before the movie. “Cruella” will showcase Super Magick playing current pop music; for “Sing 2,” we booked Cass Clayton Band and they will play U2 songs. Finally, our last event for the summer will be the movie “Yesterday,” with Beatles music provided by Classic Vinyl.

In your opinion, what makes this event special?

Infinity Park looks forward to sharing our stadium with patrons every summer. It’s not every day that you can stretch out on a professional sports team’s field and enjoy the view from a jumbo movie screen. It’s a little bit like a drive-in theater without the car. I like to think that it is similar to Red Rocks but with free parking and no hike. We allow patrons to bring their own food to this event, and we also allow adult beverages as long as they aren’t in glass containers. If you don’t feel like packing a picnic, we provide food trucks that provide a variety of food options, and we always have a giveaway of some sort with fun sponsors that hand out giveaway items as well. It’s a great way to enjoy a summer evening with that special someone or with your family.

What kind of experience do you hope attendees come away with?

We are very excited to help people kick off their weekends with these fun outdoor events. If you bring your children, there is plenty of room for them to run around and play. We hope that everyone enjoys being outside, especially after a couple of years of limited activity. (Gaining) familiarity with our stadium and location, we hope will encourage fans to come back and watch a rugby match or two later in the summer.