Every year we have our Family Movie Night the Thursday after Christmas. It is a great time for the kids to see each other during the break. The kids look forward to it every year.
Our Parent Club picks two G rated movies that are current and the kids get to vote which one they will see. We get the one time viewing license like mentioned before. If you do it in time, the company has a deal with movies companies and when they find out your movie they will give you access to making bookmarks and coloring pages from that movie.
We have it as a PJ party. We emphasize appropiate PJs and our principal even comes in her PJs. Everyone can bring their sleeping bag, pillows, bean bags etc. We do it in our cafeteria where we have a large white wall where we project the movie. The kids sit up front with their friends and then we have chairs in the back for the parents.
We sell candy, drinks, and glow in the dark necklaces and bracelets left over from our Harvest Carnival (pop and water $.50, juice $.25, candy 2/$.25). Everyone gets one free bag of popcorn. The glow in the dark items are really popular. We got ours at Dollar Tree.
At the end we have a drawing for an item that always came late for our Harvest Carnival. One year it was a Target gift card and this year it was a Hershey's fondue pot. It is a free drawing.
Our school held its first ever movie night in November and it was a big hit. We held it for K-3rd graders and we came up with 3 movie choices and let each grade vote for their choice of movie. Ratatouille won. First though once you pick your date, movie, and location, you must get a license for showing the movie through Movie Licensing USA. Website is movlic.com. For a one time showing, the cost is $75. We did not charge an admission. We just made a little money off of concessions. We had about 130 families come, but expected about 160. We had previously said space was limited and ended up giving out admission tickets at school to the first so many families and had to stop taking reservations due to limited space. If you have a room capacity, you might want to consider cutting if off at a certain number. Otherwise, it can be quite uncomfortable if it is overcrowded. The kids brought pillows and blankets in and we did have some chairs and tables up lining the outside of the area.
We ordered pizza from a local pizza place and sold the slices for $1, we sold can soda and bottled water for 50 cents each, and popcorn for 50 cents. We got half our soda donated and our water donated to us. The pizza we got a special deal and we ran out and ordered a bit more to have delivered during intermission. We purchased large bags of popped popcorn from a local grocery chain and rebagged the popcorn in smaller popcorn bags. We purchased paper chef hats at a local party store and all the helpers that evening wore them (to go with the movie theme) A local video store donated a couple of movie baskets and movie coupons for attendance prizes, and we offered a few more spiritwear items. We gave away about 8 things during intermission. We got a copy of the movie donated also for an attendance prize. The movie started at 7 p.m. and we opened the doors at 6:15 p.m. Have a system in place for your concession area especially if you are charging money. (i.e. a cashier, signs stating prices, lots of change, runners, etc.) We also lined the sidewalk entering the building with stars and balloons and even had a movie night banner made for the event which was donated by someone on the committee.
It turned out really well and we have had lots of compliments. We plan on hosting another one before school ends in May for the older kids.
Good luck with yours and hope some of this info helps!
We also have 2 Movie nights a year and have had great and good turn-outs-- we sell popcorn for 50 cents, water, juice boxes and pop for 50 cents also--
Glow bracelets, small candies-- not much chocolate, that way we can buy for the 1st Movie night and carry over whatever is left, without worrying about things going bad. We've also given out raffle tickets to each person that comes in, and raffle off 1 Movie basket that is themed around the Movie, including a copy of the Movie in the basket.
This could be done as a fun night, or fund-raiser. If you charge $1.00 per person at the door plus concessions, you can cover the cost of all the concessions plus some-- then sell tickets for a raffle--
You just have to do more than show the Movie when you charge for entrance... include a raffle ticket, free popcorn coupon, activities before relating to the Movie-- .
We also try and pick a Movie that is just coming out right before the event and advertise it to the kids so they know-- We find more families come to watch the Movie on thye Big screen when it's a newly released Movie.
We had our first movie night last night and I am so thrilled with how well it went. We decided on a theme and a comunity project to go with it. We showed underdog and asked each family that attended to bring in an item to doante to our local animal shelter. We usually do an animal shelter drive each winter anyway but firgured this would encourage more participation. The staff even got on board and brought in their dogs to welcome the families. As a surprise, they actually made capes for each dog with their initial on it. The kids went wild! We held a raffle for 2 beagle webkinz that a very creative parent dressed like Underdog with the shirt and cape. It was held in the all purpose sroom and we offered free popcorn (we bought big bags and then filled brown paper bags ahead of time). We sold water and candy at a concession table that we purchased from a local wholesale club. This way families could attend and not spend a dime or they could purchase raffle tix and food if they wanted. We had one terrific chairperson and she had about 8 or so volunteers to run tables and clean up. Our school computer teacher set the whole thing up for us in terms of equipment.
We just held our first family movie night in October and are making plans for the second because it was such a great success! It was really very simple - a pajama party in the multi-purpose room! Everyone wore their pajamas and brought sleeping bags or quilts to sack out on, which helped with the hard floor. However, space became an issue as we had a much bigger turnout than anticipated! We showed Shrek 3, and we used the trivia questions at the end of the first Shrek movies to entertain the kids as everyone got settled! We only served popcorn and ice water. The whole event was free but we gave tickets for popcorn as everyone came in so we could get a head count. We had 272 kids, parents and grandparents! Everyone LOVED the evening, and it was a great way to give back to the community! In fact, we referred to it as a "PTG Gives Back event!" Good luck, and have fun - this family night is an easy success!! Tip - Definitely pop and bag the popcorn in advance!
We just held our first family movie night in October and are making plans for the second because it was such a great success! It was really very simple - a pajama party in the multi-purpose room! Everyone wore their pajamas and brought sleeping bags or quilts to sack out on, which helped with the hard floor. However, space became an issue as we had a much bigger turnout than anticipated! We showed Shrek 3, and we used the trivia questions at the end of the first Shrek movies to entertain the kids as everyone got settled! We only served popcorn and ice water. The whole event was free but we gave tickets for popcorn as everyone came in so we could get a head count. We had 272 kids, parents and grandparents! Everyone LOVED the evening, and it was a great way to give back to the community! In fact, we referred to it as a "PTG Gives Back event!" Good luck, and have fun - this family night is an easy success!! Tip - Definitely pop and bag the popcorn in advance!
