MOViES

So far, I have been pleased with the movie turnouts this semester. Our Start-of-the-
Semester Movies Series was a huge success – we had to turn a lot of people away at each
event. The movies were largely action films – Robin Hood, Killers, and Price of Persia:
The Sands of Time. All were not yet released on DVD which I think helps. I believe
the Series was such a great success because it was the first week of school and having
several movies in a row builds up the excitement and discussion amongst students. Plus,
freshmen are still new enough to not have too many other commitments going on at
night.
Our Blockbusters so far have been Iron Man 2 and Sex and the City 2. The theater was
full for Iron Man 2, however, Sex and the City 2 was not entirely full. Sex and the City
2 was shown on a Friday of a weekend without a football (most likely the first weekend
everyone travels home during). This is where weekend programming gets tricky – it’s
sort of hit-or-miss. Either, everyone wants something different and fun to do on a Friday
night (like go see Iron Man 2), or they leave campus entirely.
We have had two Spotlight showings so far – Our Family Wedding was a collaboration
with the Latin Fest and Home was co-sponsored by SEA and Solid Green. Both have
had disappointing turnouts of only about 50 people in attendance each, but both were
movies that hardly anyone had heard of. In the end, I like to look at it positively and
think that those people trust CLEMSONLiVE enough to provide decent entertainment.
The marketing for all of the movies so far has been nearly identical – Facebook event
a week in advance, fliers up on campus a week in advance, mass e-mail sent the day
of (or day before) the event, postings on our social networking sites, listings on the
www.clemsonlive.com, and showings of the film’s trailers at previous MOViES events.
The formula has been successful so far, but I think I will push a little more for our big
films like Toy Story 3 and Inception in November.
And finally, there haven’t been any technical difficulties so far. Yay!

--Kristen Kirk