Outlander season 3 will have New York premiere; the merits of screenings

Ever since reporting on the Outlander season 3 event coming up in Los Angeles on Tuesday, September 5 (the one that we’re currently planning to attend, by the way), we’ve received many variations of the same question: Why do people on the West Coast get to have all of the fun?

Well, there is an opportunity out there now for you to attend the New York premiere of the show also on September 5 — though there are some limitations to it that aren’t there with the Los Angeles screening. The event is going to be put on in conjunction with Entertainment Weekly, and you have to be a subscriber in order to register for a chance to get tickets. You’ll be able to bring a guest, and from there you will be able to watch both the season 3 premiere and a Q&A session with stars Sam Heughan and Caitriona Balfe.

For those of you attempting to attend the event, we wish you all the luck in the world trying to land tickets since we imagine that everyone remotely close to New York will be trying to get their hands on passes. You can read more about that over at the EW page. Hopefully they’re going to provide some sort of video of the Q&A session after the fact for those who aren’t lucky enough to attend.

Now, let’s get into a discussion of some other locations that would benefit from an Outlander screening! Why not a Chicago screening event, or one in other parts of the world? Shouldn’t Scotland get a chance to see the show early with a huge event? There are a number of different things to consider when pondering over this.

1. Starz only controls American screenings – What happens overseas is more the responsibility of the studio Sony and whatever broadcaster airs the country in other parts of the world.

2. Cost – Even if you charge attendees in some way, this is still an event that requires a good bit of money and manpower in order to pull off. Add to this travel expenses since you’re going to want official employees there to monitor things who may not live in the given location.

3. Security – We hate to say it, but there are people out there who are going to want to record things and we are in a day and age where everyone has a personal recording device on their person. The more that Outlander (or any show that is stretched thin with multiple screenings), the more likely it is that someone’s going to try and pirate the show. We’re already getting more in the way of pre-premiere screenings than Game of Thrones has done either of the past two seasons.

We totally sympathize with people in the midwest, in Canada, or any other part of the world who want to have a special event in their town of choice. Unfortunately, this is just the way that the TV world works at the moment. Logistically, these events are tricky to pull off in one or two places, let alone three or more. We still think there’s merit in posting the premiere a few days early to Starz subscribers, especially given all of the screenings out there, but that’s just our own opinion.

Other Outlander news

Remember that if you love the show and want to get some more news all about it, visit our archive page! We’ve got a new story for you almost daily. (Photo: Starz.)