Starting five days prior to a Special Theme Movie Night, I'll email the invitees once a day.
The series of Special Movie Night emails might look like this:
| Five days prior to Movie Night: I begin with a flyer announcing the event (although all invitees have been contacted and have confirmed they are coming). |  |  |
| Four days prior to Movie Night: All the invitees find a vintage movie calendar in their morning email. It naturally includes the movie being shown on the day of the movie party. There's more information about vintage drive-in calendars below. | |
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| Three days prior to Movie Night: I sometimes send out tickets. If there's going to be a drawing, I'll put the invitees' names on their tickets. Interested in sending out fancy schmancy tickets that mimic the real thing? Check out the templates farther down on this page.  .... | |
Two days prior to Movie Night: I email a movie trailer of the chosen movie. If I can't download the movie trailer to send as an attachment, I'll provide a link to the trailer in the body of the email. Movie trailers can be found on YouTube, comingsoon.net, and iTunes Movie Trailers. | |
| The last few days prior to Movie Night and on the day of the movie as well, I send movie coupons to all those coming to Movie Night. Of course, all items are free regardless of what it says on the coupons, but getting a coupon for free popcorn or a half-price margarita helps to put the party goers in a Party State of Mind. For more coupons ideas, scroll lower on the page.  | |
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the marquee is hung. For ideas on how to make your own marquee, click here. | |
| If there's time, or if I already have one made, I'll set up one of the snack bars with a theme appropriate sign. For additional information on building your own snack bar, click here. | |
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Pre-Movie Playlist
I like to prepare a pre-movie playlist of songs that complements the theme of the party.
For example:
Pirate Nights will have sea shanty songs or songs from the soundtrack of various pirate movies ("Yo, Ho, Ho, and a Bottle of Rum," "Blow the Man Down," "Shiver Me Timbers," etc.).
For Old Broads Night (retired teachers from the school where I taught), I gathered hits from various old girl groups for all the old gals (The Andrew Sisters, The Poni-Tails, The Marvelettes, The Shirelles, The Ronnettes, etc.).
Just determine how many minutes there are from the time guests are expected to arrive and the opening countdown clock or main movie begins, and gather up enough songs to fill the gap.
For an easy way to determine the number of songs you'll be needing, go to Timing the Pre Show Music on the Odds and Ends page.
Print Your Own TIckets
To create the ticket, I used the Ticket Generator that Pyramid Pyro shared on the post, Pyramid Pyro Ticket Generator. The template is pretty intuitive, but there are step-by-step instructions toward the end of the post.
I don't print them out. Instead, I send the ticket via email on the week before Movie Night to add to the anticipation. If I do decide to print them, I'll probably follow BlackAdder's lead and use cardstock.
Gsylvies offered downloads for four different ticket designs.
Victor-eyd shared a link to another ticket generator. It looks a bit more complicated, but I like its looks as well.
Vintage Drive-In Calendars
These are copies of full size (8½ by 11), vintage Drive-In Calendars. These templates were prepared and shared by Cherry Hills in his interesting and informative post concerning Drive-In Theater Calendars. They were originally intended to inform would-be patrons what movies would be playing during the month, and on what particular dates.
There are several examples of vintage drive-in calendars on the internet.
I prefer to keep the original style, printed in one or two colors.
Theater Coupons
Other than the words "Cracker Jack Theater" appearing in the subject box of the email, no other explanation is given.
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After sending the above coupon via email . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . one of my guests came to movie night with these.
