Today I’d like to talk to you about ways to prevent your movie event from failing. A common misconception with providing an outdoor movie is, as long as I do it, as long as I have an event, people will come out.
Well there are some common mistakes that people make when they make that assumption. Number one, the public doesn’t know about the event. Your audience doesn’t even know the event exists. They haven’t seen it in print, they haven’t heard about it on Facebook, they haven’t heard anything from their friends, through some word of mouth.
They need to find out in some way that your event actually, is going on so they can come out to it. So what can you do? Consider watching one of our previous videos on how to promote your event. With close to over a decade of experience in performing outdoor movies, we know what sort of things work and what sort of things don’t.
Number two, you are charging for your event. One of the biggest mistakes to make, especially for fund raiding is to charge people to come to the event. There are a few examples where it will actually work such if you charge for people to come in a car, like five dollars for a car load, but very rarely is that going to actually work.
What you want to do is you want to make up your money somewhere else. Can you find sponsors for your events? We can go ahead and put up, essentially promotional slides, before the start of the movie, promoting the sponsors of the movie. That gives the sponsors a lot of exposure to your audience, and at the same time often provides a monetary stream of money coming in for your event.
Also consider selling concessions, and that’s a good way of making up money. But one of the biggest mistakes to make is to actually charge people to come out to an outdoor movie event. Number three, you picked a bad movie. Now, a lot of people will pick their personal favorites. Oh wow, I remember Grease growing up and you know do-wop I mean, boy just everybody else would love it too the nostalgia and the drive-in.
Well, in reality, most people only want to come out to see a recently released movie. One that has just been in the movie theaters and released on DVD. Nostalgia is great, it just does not bring out big numbers. So yeah, you might have a wonderful event but you might not have anybody there either.
Number four, the location of your events. Is your event being held in a place that people actually want to attend? Are they going to feel secure in the area they’re in? Is it a very a picturesque place or is it with a garbage dump behind it. It’s very important on top of all the other things Consider actually having your movie in a place where people want to come.
Number five, you didn’t provide anything for them to do while they were waiting for the movie to start. Unlike movie theaters, where people usually show up ten to twenty minutes at most and get their popcorn and take their seat. Usually people to an outdoor movie will filter in slowly. You will want something at the event to keep their attention, and have something for them to do for about an hour, to an hour and a half before the start of the movie.
If this is a kids related movie, you could have a bounce house or spin art, or many other kinds of kid activities, that they can actually do. If you have adults and definitely you’d want to have some sort of music playing in the background, not too loud, you don’t want to disturb their conversation with friends, but certainly you want to create a nice festive atmosphere before the movie actually starts.
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Southern Outdoor Cinema is the largest producer of PREMIUM outdoor movie events in the country. They are leading the industry with NEW & UNIQUE outdoor movie events. To begin planning your outdoor movie event contact Southern Outdoor Cinema at www.SouthernOutdoorCinema.com or visit their online photo gallery at www.facebook.com/SouthernOutdoorCinema for event ideas.
