Wednesday, Oct 12, 2016
107.7 The Bronc's 'Scream Screen' features the East Coast's largest movie screen
by Robert Leitner ’17
For its first-ever drive-in movie experience at the University, Rider is going big.
Presented by 107.7 The Bronc on Oct. 28, Scream Screen will project a movie on a 40-by-22-foot inflatable screen — the largest of its kind on the East Coast — erected on the Campus Mall.
LOCATION CHANGE
Due to rain, this event has been moved from the Campus Mall to the BLC lot.
A limited number of parking spots will be available on the Campus Mall, which opens at 6 p.m. and closes at approximately 7:30 p.m for all vehicles. Plenty of room will also be provided for students without cars to bring blankets and chairs to sit and enjoy the movie. And Team Toyota of Princeton will hold a contest to sit in The Tundra of Terror for students without cars. Winners will be able to sit in the back of a Toyota Tundra pick-up and enjoy the drive-in experience.
More than 2,400 students voted for one of 13 Halloween movies to be shown, creating a buzz around the event and eager anticipation of what movie will be shown. Voting narrowed the list of 13 to five, The Conjuring, Halloweentown, Hocus Pocus, The Rocky Horror Picture Show and Beetlejuice. More than 350 votes poured in on the top five movies within the first two hours of voting being open, with 500 total in the first 24 hours of voting.
The winning movie will be kept secret until its screening at 8 p.m. The Bronc's Scream Screen event will kick-off with a special showing of It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.
"Rider has shown outdoor movies successfully on campus before, but we wanted to try and make it bigger, and I think the perfect time of year to host a drive-in with a scary movie is the fall," says John Mozes, the general manager of 107.7 The Bronc.
107.7 The Bronc is a non-commercial radio station exclusively run by students and overseen by a general manager/student adviser. The Bronc follows a HOT AC format playing the biggest hits and the best variety of music. The radio station has a staff of 15 students filling roles that a commercial radio station would have. The station received an award for the Best College Radio Station for 2016 in the State of New Jersey from the New Jersey Broadcaster’s Association and was ranked 15th best college radio station in the U.S. by The Princeton Review.
The movie screen will be set up in front of the new berm facing the main entrance. Watch from your car and tune in with your car radio or sit outside where the speakers will be loud enough that no one will have a problem hearing the movie wherever you are on the campus mall.
Students are encouraged to participate in all of the activities Scream Screen has to offer. These include trunk-or-treating, which is trick-or-treating from the back of a car, on the road in front of the Student Recreation Center and Alumni Gym. With more than a dozen sponsors, there will be free candy, food, coupons, promotional items and much more for students to fill their bags with. The Alumni Association will have a goody trunk during trunk-or-treat.
Different selections of food will include cider donuts and apple cider from Terhune Orchards, pizza from Delorenzo’s on the Go, a Shake-N-Take Chips and Popcorn flavor station from Rider Dining Services by Aramark, hot chocolate from the Center For International Education and ice cream from Purple Cow Ice Cream.
The Student Entertainment Council, co-sponsor of Scream Screen, has organized an escape room, with four escape rooms that will be open from 6 to 10 p.m. in the Bart Luedeke Center. In groups of up to 10 people, students will be given one hour to figure out the clues to find their way out of the room. Send your teams to The Student Entertainment council by visiting https://www.facebook.com/RiderUniversitySEC.
"All of the events give students a chance to relax, have fun and feel like a kid again," Mozes says. They also give the student workers at the radio station a chance to gain experience in promoting and organizing events.
“Our goal is to give students an engaged learning experience, to keep students on campus over the weekend by giving them exciting things to do, and to recruit new students by getting them excited to come here,” Mozes says.
Scream Screen is presented by 107.7 The Bronc with the support of The Student Entertainment Council and Terhune Orchards. The rain date is Saturday, Oct. 29.