5 Tips for Organizing Movie Night Fun

Do you want to bring your friends, family, church group, or community together? Have you considered hosting a movie night? People of all ages enjoy movies, and there are many ways to plan and host a movie night. Here are some tips for organizing a fun movie night for your organization or town.

Location, Location, Location

When planning any event, you want to pick a location that makes sense. For a movie night, you have several options available depending on your audience, your movie, and your ultimate goal for the event. Do you want to show the movie indoors or outdoors? That one decision can help you with all the others regarding movie night fun.

Many communities show a movie in the park or on the street during the summertime. Doing this is a great way to bring the community together for a fun night outdoors that doesn’t require great physicality on the part of your participants. You could even tie your location to your theme for greater interest.

Themes Are Appealing

Think about it. If you intend to make this an ongoing event, a theme for this and future events can help pique interest without breaking the bank. For example, do you love old movies? When we say old, we mean classics like Casablanca or The Maltese Falcon, or maybe you prefer silent films like those of Charlie Chaplin.

Would you like to highlight the works of a particular director like Oliver Stone or John Hughes? Perhaps, you prefer to cater to the younger crowd and want to play cartoons or children’s favorites. Or, maybe your theme is even broader, like Westerns, sci-fi, or thrillers. Whatever you choose, a theme can help you draw a crowd to your event.

To extend your theme and the fun, you might consider having your guests dress to match the theme. Is it sports movie night? Everyone could dress as their favorite sports figure. For sci-fi night, the possibilities are endless for costume choices.

Get the Word Out

How will people know about your movie night? Movie posters are a fun way to let people know you are hosting a social event. Might we suggest using a movie poster template to create a unique poster for advertising your movie?

Speaking of social, don’t skip out on using social media to advertise. Send a party invitation to all your friends at once through your favorite social media platform. Use a template to create your invitations or create a custom design, then share it across social media. It’s a great way to invite everyone you know in the community without the expense of mailing invitations.

Another way to use social media to get the word out about your event is to create an event page. Use an online poster maker to design a poster for the event, then share it on your event page. Remember to include all the pertinent details like date, time, movie choice, and any special activities you might have planned in association with your movie night.

Don’t Forget the Snacks!

What is a movie without popcorn? It’s like peanut butter without jelly or Abbot without Costello; it just doesn’t make sense. No movie night is complete without popcorn and a soda.

You have at least three options for providing popcorn at your movie night.

Make it yourself at home—this is only truly viable for a small group of friends gathering together.

Rent a movie-style popcorn machine and make popcorn on site.
Hire a concessions company (even a small mom-and-pop local restaurant might be willing to help you with this) to provide popcorn for your event. This option could benefit both you and the company you hire if you handle it correctly.

Create a mini-concession stand with movie candies and drinks. You could use it as a fundraiser for your favorite local charity or youth organization. Or, on a hot summer night, a lemonade stand might be a way to handle providing refreshments to your guests.

If you are hosting a small movie gathering, you might consider serving a dinner that goes with your theme. For example, if you’re showing a greaser movie set in the 50s or 60s, you might consider having someone dressed as a carhop serve burgers, fries, and milkshakes.

Plan Activities to Go With the Movie

If you want your event to be memorable and bring guests back for more at your next event, you might consider having additional activities alongside your movie showing. Vary your activities depending on the ages of your guests and your movie choice. Your location will also factor into implementing this idea.

For example, if you’re showing a fairy tale (think Disney princess movie), you could host a “ball” as part of setting the mood. Encourage everyone to dress like a prince or princess, decorate the area with lights and flowers, and then have a local dance instructor teach everyone how to waltz.

There are many ideas for additional activities to make your movie night a rousing success. If you’re showing an older, black-and-white movie, you might consider a trivia game highlighting accomplishments in film from that era. A karaoke set-up that only has music from movie soundtracks is another idea for a fun side activity.

Enjoy!

You’ve done the planning and the promotion, and now you should enjoy it. If this is your first movie night, be sure to take note of the things people seem to enjoy and the things they don’t to help plan the next event. Remember, location, theme, movie, and snacks are important considerations when planning and promoting your movie night event.