This Saturday, the Q Center in conjunction with Late Nite Binghamton will be holding a virtual showing of the “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” The event will be preceded by a virtual costume contest that will take place at 11:00 p.m. on Saturday, followed by the movie screening at midnight.

The event was moved online as a precaution from COVID-19, Q Center Director Kelly Clark said.

“We were [originally] going to do it in person in the Undergrounds,” Clark said. “We ended up moving the event virtually so we wouldn’t have to worry what would happen by Halloween.”

Clark went on to explain the reasoning for moving the event to Halloween night instead of another night in October.

“We are trying to give people something that is socially distanced and responsible for Halloween night,” Clark said. “This is why we are doing it on Halloween, we usually don’t do it on Halloween because there are a lot [of] things we normally compete with.”

The event will be hosted by members of the Q Center’s Pegasus First-Year Experience program, a program meant to welcome freshmen and transfer students to BU with a safe environment for LGBTQ+ students and immerse them into the community. Zoha Khan, a freshman majoring in business administration and member of the Pegasus First Year Experiences E-Board, wrote about what the event will entail in an email.

“Viewers can expect to have a safe and fun Halloween night,” Khan wrote. “Starting it off with a costume contest to give students a chance to show off will, hopefully, bring a much-needed smile to people’s faces. They can also expect to be greeted by a kind and welcoming community of people within the Q Center who are all eager to watch a classic.”

The costume contest will take place for an hour before showing “The Rocky Horror Picture Show.” Participants will be on camera in costume and members of the Pegasus First-Year Experience program will judge them.

“My role in this event is judging costumes for the costume contest that takes place an hour before the showing of [‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’],” Khan wrote. “The other members of the E-Board and I serve as the judges”.

The costume contest gives students an opportunity to show off their costumes while social distancing.

“The [Pegasus] First-Year Experience programming board is organizing it,” Clark said. “There will be five different categories you can enter and prizes. Everybody who registers for the movie or contest will get a link to the livestream of the movie.”

The movie will be sent out via the link in the Zoom chat so that attendees can stream the film synchronously on their computers while staying on Zoom.

According to Clark, past events have been held at 10 p.m. on campus on a night a few days before Halloween. However, this year they are able to show the film at midnight.

“It’s pretty traditional to show the movie at midnight, we have never been able to show the movie at midnight because our buildings are closed,” Clark said.

“The Rocky Horror Picture” show is historically an interactive experience. Some showings have troops of actors that act out the scenes of the movie while it’s playing. Additional experiences have audiences shout phrases and use props while the movie is playing. This year, however, the Q Center will be relying on technology to bring students together.

“The idea would be people having their interactive part of the movie actually acknowledged by other people,” Clark said. “We will not all be watching it at the exact same time, it will be interesting and probably extra silly as people will be yelling out things at different times.”

Clark explained that for older generations of the LGBTQ+ community, the film is significant.

“It has tended to be a real staple in the LGBTQ+ community, and it’s probably something that our students, because of their age, don’t really know,” Clark said. “There are lots of cultures that have built up around this move.”

Clark encouraged people to utilize “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” prop list for the event, which can be found online.

Khan explained how the film will be a positive event, particularly for first-year students.

“We have a showing of [‘The Rocky Horror Picture Show’] because of its significance to the LGBTQ+ community,” Khan wrote. “This movie is a staple in queer movies, as well as a classic movie in general. Plus, watching the movie with a community provides a sense of togetherness that a first-year [student] may need, even if this year’s showing is virtual.”

The Q Center and Late Nite’s Halloween showing of “The Rocky Horror Picture Show” will take place virtually at midnight, preceded by a costume contest at 11 p.m.