Witherspoon Student Center is where students go to the movies. With $1.50 tickets, cheap concessions and an audience of peers, the atmosphere is sublime. This year, Witherspoon broke its record for the highest number of attendees.
“It’s official. Witherspoon’s new record is 31,040,” Rick Gardner, associate director of Campus Activities, said. Previously, the record was a little above 29,000.
Gardner says that the increased number of attendance was a good combination of more sneak previews and special events.
”Special game watching events, like the away games for Chapel Hill and Duke, were very popular,” Gardner said.
The away game broadcasts had close to 500 people at each screening. Students find out about the special events through UAB’s publicity. There are multiple ways that the events are publicized, according to Gardner.
“Facebook is a major way,” Gardner said. “There’s also Twitter, fliers, list serves and the UAB website.”
To promote Harry Potter Fest, there was a mural painted in the Free Expression Tunnel. The Harry Potter Fest included some outdoor activities, as well as a magician and Harry Potter-inspired food.
Amy Lawrence, a freshman in chemical engineering, said Harry Potter Fest was a fun way to get excited to go see the movie later that day.
“It was really awesome that it was put on,” said Lawrence. “There was a ride outside that was cool to watch, and the trivia was really good except the questions were really hard. The butterbeer was really good.”
Other events included an Iron Man Tony Stark Expo and a game of laser tag to promote the movie Predators.
“Those events really have helped,” Gardner said. “And we try to focus on showing movies that students want to see. Students [at UAB] have taken leadership at bringing good movies and marketing good movies.”
Movies that were played this year with high attendance included Avatar, Inception, Easy A, Social Network, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 1 and Oscar nominees Black Swan, True Grit and The King’s Speech.
Avatar was shown outside on a projector in the beginning of the first semester and had over 1,000 attendees.
Chrissy Bacak, a freshman in biology, saw each of those movies except Avatar at Witherspoon.
“Those movies were packed,” Bacak said. “They were really good. Witherspoon brought in a lot of movies that were just in theaters, and not a lot of old movies. They were very popular.”
Anderson Foster, a freshman in food science, said the theater for Black Swan was packed.
“I think that Witherspoon should have more movies like Black Swan,” Foster said. “It was really popular in theaters and it had a lot of Oscar talk about it. I think that a lot of people came because when the movie came out there was a lot of hype surrounding it. I think that the audience liked it or was at least thoroughly grossed-out by it.”
Gardner has been working since 2005 to increase the total movie attendance each year.
“We started with a total yearly attendance of 8,422 and brought it all the way up to 31,042 so that is a great accomplishment,” Gardner said.
