Went to the HP midnight premier. Felt the rumblings of the audio system. Heard the screams of possessed fans. Didn't see the movie. Went home happy and went right to bed :)
How the Harry Potter thing came about:
I was talking to the 3rd senior girl's mom, and when she heard I was new to the area, she said she would definitely tell her friends and get some word-of-mouth advertising going. That was so nice of her. Then she said, "You know, you could go to the Harry Potter premier tonight (her daughter was going), and hand out business cards. That would definitely get some more word-of-mouth out there." Genius idea! Go to a place where people already enjoy dressing up, and advertise for more parties where you can dress up and get fun makeup done.
I didn't actually have any business cards, so I grabbed some cardstock from Staples on the way home from the photoshoot, slapped together a design, printed them off, changed into a HP-esque outfit, and went to the theater.
I took the mom's idea of card-advertising one step further. I brought my face paints, and just started painting for free. I wasn't sure how the crowd would take it, if they'd be too old or too cautious to be interested in facepainting. I talked to a group of teens near the front of the line, and though they were slightly hesitant at first, I showed them my card, and one guy said, "Can you do the Voldemort Deatheater symbol?" I pulled out my paints, which attracted a lot of attention, and soon I had a whole crowd around me, taking pictures and talking about how cool it was. I really love teenagers, they're so much fun to goof off with. (Kindof funny to be painting mobile, I was using people as my table to hold my paints and tupperware-water :D ) I told them the deal was that since I was painting for free, they had to put the pictures on their facebook and tell all their friends where they got it done, who did it, and how cool it was. Everyone I talked to was more than delighted to do that.
I didn't realize that the theater would let the line into the building so early (at 10:30, I had just gotten there at like 9:45 and thought I had until 11 or midnight to paint). The line moved, and suddenly my audience was diverted. I had this crazy idea to ask the theater management if I could keep painting inside the lobby. I figured there was no way on earth they would let me do that without a ticket, but that it couldn't hurt to try. Youbanfa, right? So I made my way to one of the ticket takers, and nicely and straightforwardly explained my request, and he said, ......"Sure."
I was shocked. Literally quite shocked. He even gestured toward a little table-and-chair set in the corner of the lobby and said I could use them. I made one announcement to the girls' bathroom (of all places, haha) that I was doing free painting, and had worked the line outside earlier, and after about 5 minutes I had a long line that didn't end until 11:59. Everyone loved it. Furthermore, after the movie started and I was cleaning up, the two ticket-takers were also cleaning up, and both thanked me for what I was doing. They said it was really fun for the guests, and added a lot to the atmosphere. I gave them my card, and asked if the theater ever does any partnerships or special events. It turns out that one of them was actually the manager of the theater, and he said that the company isn't given a budget for hiring out, but that they DO have ways of swapping services. He said they were actually having their second wave of Potter fans the next night, and that I was invited to go back and keep promoting my business if I would like. They would be delighted to have that extra element of fun again.
Some businesses will let you do free advertising, because it benefits them quite a lot, and sometimes you get taken advantage of that in some regards, but these guys were really cool. We talked about how they like to keep their theater small, and being personable is really important to them. The manager was totally unassuming and a mild, cool guy. His office was decorated with movie posters and had a down-to-earth feel to it, not like the business-mogul of Utah's Jordan Commons with steel desks and impersonal everything. They were making no profit whatsoever off of my presence except a fun atmosphere, and I really liked that. The young ticket taker had told me he'd check the movie times for the 2nd wave, and when I went to the office to see what those times were, the manager handed me 4 free movie tickets. I was delighted. They didn't have to do that at all. And, they want me to come back, and will keep giving me free movie tickets.
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