On Friday, April 7, Sunchase Cinema 8 and Lancer Productions (LP) joined forces to help the early birds of Longwood University get the cinematic worm. From 4 p.m. to 7 p.m., the first 200 students who arrived at Sunchase Cinema 8 with their student ID received a movie ticket free of charge. After only an hour and a half after the event's start, an additional 100 free movie tickets were made available with over 200 students having already attended the event. Stuart Paykel, movie chair of LP, said, "We usually have extra money at the end of our budget, and we wanted to do something really fun and new."
"The benefits from having this is LP gets to be shown in a good light because everyone likes to go to a free movies, and we get to promote our stuff here also, and it's just a good alcohol-free event," said Paykel. Donald Ownby, the general manager of Sunchase Cinema 8, positively commented on the event, saying how it was beneficial for both sides, the students and the business itself. Additionally, Ownby added that one great benefit of the event was making the theater more well-known to the students.
"It certainly makes people more aware of where we are and what we provide," said Ownby, later stating, "There may be some students who are either new to college or new to the area who didn't know where we were, exactly." Ownby said Sunchase Cinema 8 is happy and willing to interact with the students of Longwood University. "We certainly would be glad to do it any time ... We like to work with the students."
