Over the past few years, the managers of FLiCKs have used every trick in the bag to try to fill empty seats, from introducing multiple show times, alternate pricing plans and special events. This year, they’ve decided to use a word every college student understands: free.

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John Shen

Students at the 7pm Flicks Showing, this year Flicks is starting a free admissions policy, sponsored by special fees

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John Shen

Dollys and the Band rally at the 10pm Flicks showing

The introduction to free screenings came with a change in FLiCK’s organizational status. For much of the past decade, Stanford Student Enterprises (SSE) managed FLiCKs as a for-profit business. Declining attendance and financial losses, however, led SSE to make FLiCKs a student organization, funded by ASSU special fees

SSE CEO Matt McDonald, a 2005 graduate, emphasized that FLiCKS is now a student group.

“It is no longer a business and much more of a service to the student population,” McDonald said. “This model should help FLiCKs sustain its history on campus and make the event more accessible to everyone.”

FLiCKs’ financial troubles have substantially worsened since 2004, with the event losing thousands of dollars each year. McDonald attributed this downturn to students who may prefer to illegally download movies from their dorm rooms than shell out $5 for admission

FLiCKs Co-manager Douglas Blumeyer, a senior, says that free showings will make FLiCKs more appealing to students and draw them away from illegally downloading the latest films on their computers.

“As movies have become easier to get for free by downloading and piracy, people are less willing to spend the money,” Blumeyer said. “FLiCKs is less about just seeing the movie; there are other ways to do that. But if you want to see it with your friends in that environment, with the big screen and sound system, that’s what it’s for.”

More than 100 students attended the 7 p.m. FLiCKs showing last night, and Blumeyer said he expects attendance to dramatically increase.

“For most people I’ve talked to, the difference between five bucks and free is astronomical.”

Co-manager Matthew Reed, a sophomore, shared Blumeyer’s prediction.

“I think attendance will go up,” Reed said. “People always complain about how they have nothing to do but go to frat parties. Now they have a viable, free option.”

But some students were not so sure that the change in pricing would draw them to Memorial Auditorium, the location for most FLiCKs showings.

“Even last year when I had the $10 Fall Quarter season pass, I didn’t go very often,” said sophomore Wilson Restrepo. “I’d go if there was a movie I hadn’t seen before. But either I wasn’t very interested in most of the movies, or I had seen them already.”

Junior Fem Jira said that she attended FLiCKs a few times each year and that a change in price could help.

“The main reason I did not go was not the price,” she said. “It was more of a convenience matter. But a free ticket might help.”