CSUN’s Summer Movie Fest Kicks Off With a Bang While Supporting a Worthy Cause

  • The opening night of Summer Movie Fest featured a 30-foot inflatable whale, staying true to the under-the-sea theme. Photo by David J. Hawkins.

  • Crowd in lawn chairs on University Library Lawn facing an inflatable movie screen

    The crowd enjoys Summer Movie Fest in June, 2016. The event has returned this year to the University Library Lawn. Photo by David J. Hawkins.

  • Free activities such as face painting gave children a fun and exciting way to get involved before the movie at opening night of Summer Movie Fest. Photo by Luis Garcia.

  • Kids had fun participating in free games while waiting for the movie to begin on the Oviatt Lawn. Photo by Luis Garcia.

  • CSUN Associated Student members get the kids involved as they ask questions for prizes at opening night of the Summer Movie Fest. Photo by Luis Garcia.

  • Moviegoers lined up at 5:30 p.m. to taste the variety of choices brought to opening night of the Summer Movie Fest by five different food trucks. Photo by David J. Hawkins.

California State University, Northridge’s Sixth Annual Summer Movie Fest made its season debut with Finding Nemo on June 16.

Each year the Summer Movie Fest has gotten bigger. This year, Associated Students, the producer of the event, have lined up 12 movies and related themed activities, including live music, fun games for kids and food trucks.

“Being that this is the first [movie], it’s pretty big — so I see it growing even more,” said CSUN senior and A.S. Marketing Producer Austin Hidalgo. “We’ve done over 3,000 people for some of the big movies like the Disney movies. It’s really exciting to see that growth.”

Starting with only 200 people on the bookstore lawn in its first year, the event has grown to an estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people per movie this season, according to Austin Ysais, program coordinator for A.S. Productions.

The Summer Movie Fest will take place every Thursday evening through Sept. 1 on the Oviatt Lawn. The movie will begin at dusk and a wide range of food trucks will be available to moviegoers starting at 5:30 p.m. The event is open to the public and dogs are welcomed as long as they are kept on a leash.

“We’ll have a lot of great raffle prizes from Universal Studios tickets to Disneyland passes for a family,” said Ysais. “We’re going to have different activities like face painting, calligraphers and a lot of fun activities for your kids.”

The opening night of Summer Movie Fest brought in approximately 2,000 moviegoers and featured five different food trucks and stands, Irie Earth Steel Drums band, a 30-foot inflatable whale, free face painting for kids and a raffle prize of four movie tickets to see Finding Dory at the El Capitan Theatre in Los Angeles. Proceeds from the raffle tickets were donated to the San Fernando Rescue Mission.

“We come for the kids mostly — they can run around and be happy,” said Nedia Salazar, Special Projects Coordinator in CSUN’s Mike D. Eisner’s College of Education.

For more information visit csunas.org.

, ,