UVA Uses Virtual Screenings to Keep Students Engaged

“As a result of COVID-19, many students are reporting feeling isolated from the university community and bored,” shared Rasheed Christian, cinema director for University of Virginia’s University Programs Council. “Our virtual movie events provide students with a safe activity they can engage in along with their friends. And they’re particularly useful as both students who are living on campus and those who stayed home can participate!”

It also doesn’t hurt that these events seem to be their most popular. Typically attracting about 150-250 sign-ups for their virtual movies, Rasheed says that figure is “a bit larger than our average attendance for other virtual events they host.” Plus, they are the right price for the council’s budget. “The best part of hosting virtual movie events is being able to engage so many people without expending extra costs.”

All this has resulted in a successful programming option for the campus during a very difficult time, and the students are grateful. “I’ve gotten so many emails from students thanking me for these events as they are experiencing severe boredom and this is helping to alleviate them of it,” said Rasheed. In fact, these events are so successful that the council is looking into expanding the events and possibly adding partnership giveaways and trivia components in the future.

So how does the university promote and plan for virtual movie events? After ordering their license through Swank, the council will create a Google Form two weeks prior to the event that allows students to sign up. Because attendance is limited to 500 attendees, the first 400 people to sign up receive a link with the last 100 slots raffled off when necessary. The Google Form is closed on the day of the screening and a mass email is sent out to everyone who signed up with a link to stream the film for the next 24 hours.

In addition to a change in the types of events they’re hosting, the school’s promotion strategy has also shifted as a result of the pandemic. “While we usually rely on in-person marketing through tabling and handing out flyers to promote our events, that hasn’t really been a possibility because of social-distancing guidelines,” shared Rasheed. “So we’ve relied heavily on using our events as promotional tactics for other events. The synergy of getting people who attend specific events to attend other events has been particularly useful!”

Rasheed said they’ve also used their social media and online platforms much more than they would normally. The council posts the Google Form and event information on their Facebook and Instagram accounts, and they always create a specific Facebook event page for every movie. Beyond that, they’ve started including more interactive content that allows students to be a part of the process through voting. Sometimes they even do giveaways for UPC merchandise, which Rasheed says has been helpful for gaining a larger following. They’ve also partnered with Instagram pages that have notable followings, like @albumreceipts, to create marketing events that help them gain followers. “Last week we did an event where we encouraged students to create a playlist and share it with us for a chance to win a speaker and a custom graphic made by Album Receipts,” shared Rasheed.

For schools looking to start programming virtual movie events, Rasheed advises surveying the students themselves to figure out what they’d like to see on your events calendar. “Just putting out simplistic polls to find out what movies the students are interested in watching and seeing the events they’d like you to put on is extremely beneficial,” said Rasheed. “I would also advise looking into ways to make virtual movie events more interactive and personable. Moderated zoom calls, giveaways and trivia events following movies definitely encourages students to be more engaged with the activity and make the event a meaningful substitution for in-person events.”

Want to program your own virtual movie event? Contact your Swank Account Executive for more information.