At the start of each semester, the faces of musicians and movie stars stare up at passersby on the Reitz Union Colonnade.
The poster sale has become a tradition, done in partnership between The College Poster Sale Company, a touring poster retailer, and the Arts and Crafts Center located in the Reitz Union.
It has been held for more than 30 years, said Jill Keezer, assistant director of arts and leisure at the Reitz Union.
But things haven’t been going quite as well this semester, said Chris Alexander, who is a UF alumnus and manages the sale as an agent of the poster retailer.
Sales are down about 10 percent, he estimated.
Twenty percent of the proceeds of the sale go toward the center, which in turn funds the Reitz Union’s art gallery on the second floor.
Every school day for a week, Alexander and those who work with him wake up at 8 a.m. and sprawl their posters and pictures over 23 wooden tables and in eight smaller bins.
While the 37-year-old poster retailer said his company is in no danger of folding, Alexander said he sees a trend that some students are being a little tighter with cash than they have been in recent years, opting to use money on things other than posters.
Pouring rain and 30-degree weather this week also played a role in dissuading students from standing outside and shuffling through posters, he said.
But nationally, the sales have remained relatively stable, Alexander said.
Students are still stopping in to buy their pictures of Johnny Depp as Hunter S. Thompson in “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas,” and the company has been able to weather the economy much better than other businesses, he said.
But since Alexander arrived at UF in 2009, sales have plateaued and dipped.
“My theory is the impact [of the economy] has slowly gotten into the psyche of incoming students,” he said. “Now that we’ve been sitting here in a down economy, kids are thinking more about how they spend their disposable income.”
Keezer said she hasn’t been forced to scale anything back, though she urged students to continue to buy posters and support the gallery.
“You’re investing in students,” she said. “You’re helping the art program and students who might be showing their art for the first time in the gallery.”
