J. Wayne Reitz Union
Educating Leaders for a Global Community
Thank you for taking the time to send us your comments, suggestions and queries regarding GatorNights!.
GatorNights! is the leading late night program in the Southeast and takes place every Friday night during the Fall, Spring, and Summer B semesters. GatorNights! takes place in the Reitz Union and the Southwest Recreation Center from 6:30pm-2am. The program offers FREE first run movies, bands, comedians, improv shows, arts and crafts, novelties, interactive games, cultural events, interactive lectures, dances, DJ's, artists, video game tournaments, popcorn and soda, and most importantly FREE midnight breakfast! The game room is also open for UF students and their guests AND the Southwest Recreation Center stays open until 2am!
You must be a UF student to attend and you need your Gator 1 card to get in but each UF student can bring ONE guest.
GatorNights! began on August 25, 2000 after the Student Activities staff attended WVUp All Night, the late night program at West Virginia University. Almost 1800 students attended the first GatorNights! and it has been a Gator tradition ever since! The average weekly attendance at GatorNights! is about 1300 to 1800 depending upon the week and the movie playing. As a result of the popularity, several other universities have visited GatorNights! in an effort to implement a similar program on their campuses. These universities include University of Arkansas, Bowling Green State University, University of Central Florida, Clemson University, University of Colorado, University of Hawaii, Florida State University, Georgia Tech, Georgia State University, University of South Carolina, Texas A and M University, Texas Tech University, Virginia Commonwealth University, University of Missouri-Columbia, and Florida Atlantic University.
The popularity of the program has led to several changes in the amount of services and programs we provide since the program's inception in the year 2000. Specifically, due to the fact that we had to turn people away from both the 9pm and the 11:30pm movie showings every week, in 2003 we added a third movie time at 6:30pm every Friday to accommodate our audience. We also show the GatorNights! film on Saturdays at 8pm and 10:30pm. We have also added a 2nd novelty act to each night to shorten the time one has to wait to participate in a novelty program. In an effort to increase awareness of all campus programs from Thursday-Sunday evenings at UF student activities staff created Stuff To Do. This website lets students know what is going on, not only on Fridays at the Union, but all over campus Thursday-Sunday nights! GatorNights! is always willing to cosponsor with other student organizations and because of this the diversity of programming has increased as well. We look forward to many more changes in the near future so keep your eyes open!