RPC organizes HP screening

By Joey Capparella     11/11/10 6:00pm

On Nov. 18, more than 1,000 Rice wizards and witches will get the magical opportunity of a lifetime to ride the Hogwarts Express all the way to Edwards Cinema to see Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part I at 8 p.m., four hours before the movie premieres to the Muggle community. The movie, based on the seventh and final book in the Harry Potter series, will be the second-to-last film installment of the series because of Warner Brothers' decision to split the final book into two films. Part II is scheduled to debut July 15, 2011.

Rice Program Council Arts and Entertainment Committee co-Chair Adrianne Waddell said the idea for a special screening of the movie originated at Brown College.

"[Brown junior] Melissa Fwu was looking at doing a screening just for Brown, and the Passport to Houston program thought it would be cool to do for the entire campus," Waddell, a Sid Richardson College junior, said.

---

---

Director of Campus-Wide Programs Boyd Beckwith said he was glad to see the positive student response to the event.

"It's beneficial that students can pick the events that the Passport to Houston program sponsors," Beckwith said. "I expected there to be significant interest in this event because Harry Potter has been so popular all along."

Waddell agreed, saying that Harry Potter goes along well with Rice's culture.

"I think this event had a lot of demand because Rice and Harry Potter are often thought of as synonymous," Waddell said. "We originally intended to rent out four theaters, but when we saw how many people were interested, we decided to increase that to six."

The process for getting tickets was mostly left up to each residential college's cultural coordinators. Waddell said 97 tickets were given to each college and the Graduate Student Association for students, and 10 tickets for each college were set aside for college masters, resident associates, associates and coordinators.

"Our committee met with the culturals from all the colleges and said that every college had to do the first 50 tickets on a first-come, first-served basis and then the next 47 through a 'sorting hat' themed lottery process," Waddell said.

Waddell said that the GSA had the least number of tickets claimed, followed by Martel College and Jones College. Brown, Hanszen, Duncan, Lovett, McMurtry, and Baker Colleges claimed all 97 of their tickets.

Extra tickets were given to the Rice Memorial Center Information Desk and are available for students to purchase for $10. As of yesterday, there were four tickets remaining.

The $10 price that students pay for these tickets covers the cost of renting out the theaters, Waddel said.

Beckwith said all participants will need to present a Rice ID at the theater.

"I hope that entrepreneurial-minded students will not try to sell their tickets on eBay or Craigslist," Beckwith said. "This is a Rice-exclusive event."

Transportation will not be provided to and from the event.

McMurtry College sophomore Bailey Firszt got her ticket through the lottery at her college.

"I e-mailed the culturals four hours late, so I didn't get one of the first 50 tickets, but then my name got picked for the lottery," Firszt said. "I'm excited that I don't have to stay up late for the midnight premiere. I love Harry Potter and I would do that for him, but I would definitely rather see it at 8 p.m."

Hanszen junior Mitchel Norton said he did not try to get a ticket.

"I want to finish reading the books before I see the movie," Norton said. "I haven't read past the fourth book and I don't want to ruin the seventh book by seeing the movie first."

Although he has only read the first book and seen the first movie, Beckwith said he also is going to the event.

"I would not want to miss such a once-in-a-lifetime Rice event," Beckwith said. "It's unfortunate that Part II of the movie comes out in the summer so that we can't do an event like this again.

---