The biggest confusion was that people don't listen.

We pre-sold tickets (a different one for each movie), and let the parents know how many each space would hold.

Madagascar will be showing in Theater A (the cafeteria) and seating is limited to 100. Charlie and the Chocolate Factory will be shown in Theater B (the gym) and seating is limited to 250. Order your tickets as soon as possible to reserve your space!

Sounds self-explanatory...right? WRONG!!! Even with ushers to show people where to go, we still had people in the wrong theaters and not realizing it until after the movie started. Of course, then they wanted to get to the right one so they caused a commotion packing up their sleeping bags, pillows, popcorn, etc. and then caused another commotion in the other theater re-arranging everything all over again. Not to mention that they missed the first part of the movie before they realized that they weren't in the right spot.

Then, my favorite part...people ordering tickets for BOTH movies. They truly thought that they were going to see a double-header. And it wasn't just one family. We had "Movie Night from 7-9" posted everywhere. I just don't see where they came up with that idea.

Also, because we have very few people who will actually volunteer, we were short on help. We had some people making the popcorn, others pouring drinks, others doing the greeting and sign-ins and it was hard to keep control over 2 theaters. As I mentioned before, we didn't spell out EXACTLY what we expected from the parents, and we had kids dancing in front of the screen during Madagascar. Personally, I don't find that kind of behavior the least bit entertaining, and would have yanked a knot in my child's tail had it been mine. It amazes me that a parent can let their child do that and just sit there and smile because they think it's cute.

The last reason I can think of was the popcorn issue. Popcorn only pops so fast, and even though we tried to distribute it evenly between theaters, people were getting irate that they weren't getting theirs fast enough. I think we can just chalk that one up to "you can't please everyone", but it's still a downer when you are doing your best.

Sorry this is so long, and hopefully yours will go better than ours.

What was the confusion? At our Winter Fest we plan on having two movie rooms and selling concessions in the middle. This is our first try at anything like this. If you want to you can email me at carmieb93ATyahoo.com. I'd appreciate any info you can give me on this. Our plus side is that we only have 5th and 6th grade students so there isn't a big age gap there.

The first time that we did a movie night we showed Charlie and the Chocolate Factory in the gym and Madagascar in the cafeteria. I would not suggest trying to run two movies at the same time...it was horrible! We though that by having the two, that we would interest the upper grades as well as the lower grades. All we ended up doing was creating mass confusion as we had problems with both areas. Refreshments were free, and we had a lot of spills and waste.

The second time we did movie night (in December) we showed Polar Express. We let the 5th graders sell refreshments to help with camp costs, and didn't have nearly the spillage/waste problems that we had the first time. I think people tend to be a little more careful when they are paying for things instead of getting them free. Ya know?!

Both times we held movie night on Friday from 7-9. That way families whose parents work would have time to eat dinner and get there, and the kids wouldn't be up late on a school night. The biggest complaint we had the first time was the kids talking and running around during the movie. Before the second one, we made sure that the parents understood that this was FAMILY night...no drop offs...and that they had to keep their kids under control. After we let the parents know what we expected of them, things were much better.

HTH!

[ 01-02-2006, 10:31 AM: Message edited by: Melissa Constantine ]

Well we dont charge for the movie, but we do charge for the food. The family night info that PTO today has is a great start with lots of the info.
For choosing the movie we're a K-2 school we narrowed it down to five and the kids are voting. Then we will apply for our liscense once we know which one.
The kids can wear pjs, we will do popcorn, snacks, and pizza. We are doing ours on a Friday this is the first time we have ever done anything on a Friday so we shall se how that goes. We are also having families reserve their tickets just to know how many and so we dont go over capacity issues in our cafeteria.

Good Luck

Cindy

Hi crawfordmom -

You're going to love the free Family Movie Night planning kit available here. Answers to all those questions plus free posters and flyers and more.

Visit here: www.ptotoday.com/sfn

Tim

As I have seen with some other posts, our school basically runs as a fund raising unit. We would like to change that and try starting with a family movie night, but I have some questions?
1) what movie?
2) some of you mentioned a fee ($50) for what and who do you pay for it.
3) Best night to have it?
4) Maximum time limit?

Thanks!! I hope this goes over well.

Kim