At 12 a.m. on Sunday, Jan. 28, 112 Union University students filled two auditoriums of the Empire 8 Theatre in Jackson for the Student Activities Council’s (SAC) annual Midnight Movie event.
Students that arrived when the doors opened at 11:30 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 27 were greeted by SAC members and ushered into either auditorium one — for “How To Train Your Dragon” — or auditorium four — for “Barbie.” Although SAC did not provide refreshments, students were welcome to either bring their own into the theater or purchase them in the lobby.
As the first event of the new semester, SAC initially planned Midnight Movie for the week before, promoting discounted ticket prices of $5 in advance and $7 at the door for “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” and “How To Train Your Dragon.”
Due to the inclement weather that closed the University for four days and interrupted regular operations for businesses in Jackson, SAC had two options: either change the date of Midnight Movie or move the event on campus. Co-chairs of Midnight Movie Shane Tendo and Katie Ayala ultimately made the call on Wednesday to postpone the event.
Although moving the event on campus would have reduced the need for third-party collaboration, according to Tendo and Ayala, keeping Midnight Movie off campus provided a much-needed connection to the greater Jackson community.
“It gets you out of your bubble here,” Ayala, a fifth-year physical education major, said. “I feel like we can get real used to being stuck on campus all day, so it’s nice to get out every once in a while.”
Postponing the event also brought a major change, as SAC over the weekend replaced “The Ballad of Songbirds and Snakes” with “Barbie.” SAC removed the former title due to a lack of availability on streaming services.
Reservations for the new movie filled quickly, with tickets to “Barbie” selling out before students arrived at the theater on Saturday. Besides the success of “Barbie,” the additional days to publicize the event also increased overall student turnout substantially.
“I think it [the number of students] basically doubled between last week and this week,” Tendo, a sophomore engineering major, said. “It was a massive jump. That could be because of the movie or it could be because we pushed it a week.”
Norah Taylor, a freshman digital media communications major, although having seen both movies, chose to watch “How To Train Your Dragon” rather than “Barbie” for both practical and sentimental reasons.
“Out of the two movies that were offered, this is the one I wasn’t absolutely sure that I had seen on the big screen,” Taylor said.
The planned spontaneity of events like Midnight Movie also appealed to Taylor, who hopes that SAC will do more events like it.
“I think a lot of college life is projects and stuff that are constantly being pre-planned and pre-planned,” Taylor said. “There’s something about just like ‘Hey let’s just go hang out and have fun’ that’s nice and different from everything else we have to do.”
SAC’s next event will be Bingo Night on Feb. 8 and will be held in the G.M. Savage Memorial Chapel.
