Atlanta

This page is designed to compile all known ways to attend a free advanced movie screening, both online and offline. If you live in Atlanta and know of other providers or offers in your area, please leave a comment and help us out.

General Providers

When you attend enough advanced screenings, you start to notice that the same providers keep sponsoring them. So it's in your interest to find out more about these providers.

1. Local Radio

Generally, local radio stations can give out screening passes six ways:

• Listen to win: "Our 29th caller gets tickets for two to see.."
  
• Pass pick-up: "Drop by our station office and pick up passes..."
• Expo or festival: "Stop by our booth and be sure to grab tix..."
• Follow the van: "Our wacky afternoon DJ has driven the prize van over to some local business and is giving away free hot dogs and movie passes!"
• Point system: "Join our listeners club, and when you earn enough points..."
  
• Online contests: "Enter by Monday. We'll select five winners then to attend..."

In the past, Star 94, B98.5, and 97.1 The River have each sponsored sneak previews. Q100 used to offer screenings, but they still list some listen-to-win contests at the bottom of their page. 99X has online contests, but is more likely to give away passes out of their prize van. V-103 does the listen-to-win thing. Sign up at Eagle 106.7 to find the occasional contest.

You might also try your luck with the contest pages of 94.9 The Bull, 95.5 The Beat, Kiss 104.1, WSB 750, and 790 The Zone.

Feel free to find other local stations by using Radio Locator or your favorite Internet search engine.

2. Local Print

Though it lacks an online contest page, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution does apparently offer passes in its print version -- about once every other week. Look for ads of these offers and follow their instructions. Usually, you go to the newspaper's corporate office or a local business to pick up passes. Sometimes they give you a phone number and some prompts to call for passes, or even request contest submissions by mail.

You should also look for any weekly or community papers that you might find in libraries or in colorful boxes along city sidewalks. There's Creative Loafing, for example, which updates its online offers every Tuesday. When they offer an advanced screening, sometimes they make you enter online to win tickets, and sometimes they tell you where and when to pick up passes from a local business. And don't forget to check the print edition to see if movies are offered there.

The Sunday Paper is actually a free weekly paper published on Thursdays. Look for pass pick-up offers in their print editions.

3. Local TV

Visit The CW for frequent online contests. You can also try the contest page at MyFOX 5, but be advised that the rules are strictly enforced: you can win only once every 90 days, and winners must present ID when they pick up passes at the station. ABC 2 and CBS 46 offer movie-related prizes, but not screenings.

4. Local Internet

The place to go is Shakefire, where you register to win for any of several screenings offered each month. As we understand it, they reward those who participate in their forums most frequently, but you may want to look into it for more details.

CHUD is based in Atlanta, but spreads out a little into other cities in the Southeast. They should offer a few local screenings each month; usually they provide an e-mail address where you send your entry, but sometimes it's a last-minute thing where a representative will have a stack of passes at the screening itself. Then, presumably, you just show up, and it's first come, first serve.

5. Regional and National Internet

Blackfilm is based in New York City, but will sometimes include Atlanta when it offers a screening in multiple cities.

Then there's the Landmark Theatres Film Club and The Cinema Source, where you can sign up to receive screening offers by e-mail. (They may be other film clubs out there with paid memberships, but that kind of action is beyond the scope of this site.)

Film Metro has gone national and may offer screenings just about anywhere. Take a look and see if your city is included.

Be sure to check the national forums at Fat Wallet and Slick Deals as well. THE MOVIE OUTSIDER has a representative that posts offers on each of those forums, and compiles a list of screenings by city that links back to here. More importantly, other members in the forums will relay info about multi-city screenings sponsored by the movie studios and PR firms. Use these sites in tandem, and you'll get about as much publicly available information as possible.

Specific Offers

27 DRESSES (otherwise opens January 11)

The CW screening
Thursday, Jan. 10, time and location unknown

CLOVERFIELD (otherwise opens January 18)

Shakefire screening
Wednesday, Jan. 16, time and location unknown

THE ORPHANAGE (already in limited release)

CHUD screening
Date, time, and location unknown

THERE WILL BE BLOOD (already in limited release)

CHUD and The CW screening
Thursday, Jan. 10 at 7pm in UA Tara