This is our second year of having Family Movie Nights. We keep the cost as low as possible with concession items costing no more than 50 cents. It has been a great experience each time we have had a movie night. We have planned for 2 more this year.
We show our movie night in the gym. We have a projector and a screen that comes down from the ceiling. The kids bring the blankets and pillows and lay on the floor and parents have chairs to sit on around the perimeter of the gym. We sell candy, soda, popcorn, water and pretzels and cheese. The kids have a great time and at the end we raffle the movie off and a few other prizes.
We did Movie Nights last year and learned a few things:
1) Make sure the sound system and projector are working properly before you start; try to have someone on hand that knows what they're doing if something goes wrong.
2) Make absolutely certain you have a system in pace to ensure parents stay with their kids instead of using you as a free babysitter.
3) Clearly define where people are and are not allowed to go. If restrooms are not easily available in the room you are in, block off the hallway they are in to prevent people from passing a certain line.
4) If you're selling food-probably a good idea-make sure you have people collecting the money that are trustworthy and can handle the job. Also, make sure someone knows how to maintain the equipment, eg, work and clean the popcorn machine.
Our group tried Movie Nights last year but the woman running things not only didn't think of these things, she failed to correct them when they did come up and we ended up having to cancel any further Movie Nights.
Also-showing a movie outdoors requires a separate kind of license; it is not covered by the license most schools have, so make sure what your license says.
Hi!
We showed our movie in our library because we are a small private school. It was awesome because our library is carpeted and the kids brought their sleeping bags & pillows and pretended it was a big sleepover -- very cozy. Families loved it. As for the projector, our school had the equipment we needed and let us use what we needed. We have talked about doing an outside showing at the end of the school year. A nearby school did this and projected on a big sheet.-Caroline
Our school has not done a movie night thus far. I have a question for you though. Do you guys have a movie night in several rooms or in one big room? Do you have just one big TV? Did the PTO supply the TV?
