Outings to the movie theater don’t always fit into the average college student’s budget. But with its Movie Run program, Elon University’s Student Union Board has been helping to offset the cost of a night at Carousel Cinemas in Alamance Crossing since 2005.
Previously, students could purchase $5 tickets from 5-6 p.m. at the Moseley Center front desk once a month. But Friday, Sept. 14., SUB debuted a new model, allowing students to purchase discounted tickets all day in its office. Junior Brandon Lundie, SUB’s special events co-chair, said he was impressed by student interest.
“We’ve had a huge turnout,” Lundie said. “Usually it only goes on for an hour on Friday nights, but we’ve changed it to be all day to try and get more people, people who can’t make it during that time frame.”
According to SUB, offering tickets all day in the office gave more students the opportunity to come and more time to get the word out. They hoped a higher number of students would hear about the offer.
“Usually there would be a line of people who get there really early,” Lundie said. “But once the mad rush stopped, that was it.”
For some students, the monthly trip to the Moseley front desk is a ritual. Others had no idea SUB offered the discount.
“There have been quite a few people who came through that hadn’t heard about it,” said junior Rebecca Stanley, special events co-chair for SUB. “I just saw a junior who said ‘Oh, I’ve never heard of it before,’ but there are also people who come every month.”
The time change this semester is not the only adjustment the Movie Run program has seen throughout the years. When the program started, it provided transportation to the theater for students, which is no longer offered.
“It started because the movie theater used to be right here in town, on Church Street right near the Sonic,” Lundie said. “So what we would do is not only buy and sell the tickets, but we would run students to the movie. Then that place shut down, so we just kind of kept the tradition, kept the name, but stopped driving people.”
This month, Stanley said students came in waves all day while passing through the Moseley Center.
“They finally started to hear about it, and they’ll just say ‘Oh yeah, let’s grab that too,’ while doing something else in Moseley,” Lundie said.
Movie Run is a great deal for both students and SUB, according to Janis Baughman, director of student activities. The university spends $1,350 on the tickets and usually earns $1,000 back. While the organization loses about $350, SUB’s overall budget does not suffer.
Students can now take the BioBus to Alamance Crossing to use their Movie Run tickets. With free transportation and discounted admission, an evening off campus costs as little as $5.