For capacity issues, our school grounds supervisor told me to contact the local fire marshall and as far as selling tickets for raffle like baskets and an elephant table we had, I had to get a permit from our state police head qtrs.

I know we need the license thats not an issue for us, but as to know how many people to account for is an issue. I wasn't sure how to handle pre-selling or whatever. I thought they had told me though that you can't sell the tickets to get in. So I wasnt sure how other schools handled this.

Thanks for all your help.

Cindy

Yes, Jenn, you are correct.
check out Movlic.com

They have all the info. It might be worth it for the PTO is just buy it and have peace of mind.

I don't mean to be the "movie" police...but in order to be legal...you absolutely have to have a movie license to show any kind of movie. It doesn't matter if you charge admission or not. Your parents should ask about copyright laws because it is very valid. Before we did our first movie night I asked around. I called Disney directly to ask about it and if you are caught showing a Disney movie without permission, the fines are huge. And please note that this applies to any movie producer. Showing any movie without a license is purely illegal. Ask your school librarian about this. Teachers are not even allowed to show movies in their classrooms unless it specifically applies to the curriculum they are teaching. Most animated movies have very little to do with teaching - but everything to do with indoor recess when it's raining.

Anyway - a license for a one time show costs $50 (more or less depending on the size of your school). This is nothing compared to the fine you would get if someone at your school told just the "right" person what you all were doing. Our librarian at our school has specific details of schools that have been sued over showing movies without a license.

Again - I don't want to be the movie police - but this really is a big issue and would certainly spoil the fun of your movie night if you were caught.

We did advance reservations, and checked names at the door. We've had two movie nights so far, and neither has been at capacity, although we were pretty darn close at the second one.

We sectioned off the cafeteria so that people with reservations could be seated in front, then people without reservations (if we thought we had space to admit them) had to sit in the back. Then, about 5 minutes before the movie was supposed to start, we allowed the people without reservations that we had admitted to move up if there was space. That seemed to work pretty well, and gave people an incentive to get their reservation in on time. For the next one, if we get enough reservations so that we think we would be full, we would probably make people without reservations just wait outside until 5 or 10 minutes before we started, then let them in, rather than having them sit in back and then move forward--depends how close to capacity we think we might end up.

One thing we have noticed--since this is a free event, we have a VERY high no show rate--something like 25%-30% for each of the two we have held. There are also a fair number of people who just show up without reservations, which is why we have to be careful about how we handle them. Don't want to make them mad, but don't want to crowd out the people who had the foresight and courtesy to reserve in advance.

Note that it if you have the license you are supposed to have from movlic.com, you are prohibited from charging an admission fee to see the movie. You can charge for concessions.

Definitly have a limited amount of tickets and check with local fire dept. for permit. The fee is like 5.00 for the permit. Also, we had some parents yack about copyright. I looked into www.movlic.com for ins. for this. Depending on your principal, ours said don't worry about it.
So did the movie store. We rented Parent Trap rated G and showed it at our Mother Daughter Pj Event. What a blast!! Under search, pop in mother daughter Pj event and check it out.