Second in a two part series on the what, why and how of Event Theatrical.
The Three Main Avenues of Event Theatrical
1. Film Festivals
I’ve said this many times – when you are in festivals – you are in distribution. It is not new that for many filmmakers, festivals are the entirety of their event theatrical release, the concern is that many don’t treat them this way. I still get many filmmakers who come to me saying, “we’re near the end of our festival run – we want to start distribution now.” That thinking needs to stop. In fact you as Ted Hope has also written – if you don’t plan for distribution in advance of your festival premiere – you are shooting yourself and your project in the foot.
2. Conventional Theatrical (Reimagined)
For many independent releases, theatrical is now a blend of week-long runs and one night events in theaters. As discussed last week, to stand out, you have to eventize it. Build scarcity (one-night-only runs, filmmaker appearances), or add unique live qualities (Q&As, performances, special guests). See the ENO case study where nearly every screening was a unique viewing of the film. Note also that ENO booked into a number of large non-film specific event spaces prior to their theatrical one day events with higher ticket prices to take advantage of the pent up demand and to eventize with the director Gary Hustwit live mixing on stage.
3. Community & Grassroots Screenings
Community/grassroots/alternative/public educational screenings in any kind of venue breaks open the infinite possibilities of engaging audiences in community – literally anything outside of a traditional theater. Clubs, nursing homes, libraries, forests, community centers, fire stations, prisons, military bases – the list can go on and on. Conferences are also incredible ways of engaging with core communities and can be revenue generators as well.
The location adds flavor, but the essence is the community-driven experience. Partner with nonprofits, advocacy groups, libraries, or cultural centers. Each event becomes a node in a wider impact network. You may not sell out a 300-seat cinema every time—but the connection, discussion, and social media ripple can be even more valuable.
Virtual Event Theatrical
The pandemic gave birth to the virtual theatrical release – with theaters using online portals to screen films to audiences. Simultaneously virtual events exploded in numerous formats with Kinema’s Christie Marchese labeling these “film drops” (see upcoming guest post from Christie in the coming weeks). These virtual events use time scarcity to promote viewership and can be accompanied by a wide variety of virtual events.
These are generally more successful when the filmmaker has engaged dedicated audiences eager to be spoken to.
Who Books What?
For filmmakers wondering how to get started:
- Festivals → festival consultant/booker and/or the filmmaking team. See our webinar with Sky Sitney. More posts coming.
- Theatrical runs → distributor, independent booker or the filmmaking team. Generally it is better to engage someone who has a good reputation among theaters to book your film – this is a relationships business. But I booked Bomb It myself and have worked with filmmakers who have also booked their own screenings. See my first Filmmaker Magazine article from 2008. It is tougher now because the competition is intense – many theaters have closed since the pandemic and many more filmmakers are engaging theatrical. Also more posts on how to do this properly in the future.
- Community screenings → impact producer, community screenings manager, or filmmaking team. Much has been written about this by many people. See Sarah Mosses post here.
Larger independent releases will have people handling each of these areas working in intense coordination with the filmmaking team. With smaller releases (that can often appear very large) the filmmakers are doing much of the work on their own.
Release Timing
Event Theatrical doesn’t happen in a vacuum—it happens in time. When you premiere matters. More on this later but the essentials to determining timing are:
- A Distribution Premiere or Launch Date: The following can all affect when you engage event theatrical: A prominent festival premiere, a broadcast or SVOD release date, strategic alignment with similar films who are also engaging distribution. If your film has a strong educational component – when you release in relation to the school year will be important.
- Thematic Tie-ins: What is the day/month/year that makes sense for your audience? Included are related book or other media launches or birthdays/anniversaries related to your subjects or related authors, musicians etc. Many communities look for events around the myriad of specific themed months/days. We timed the initial release of Keys Bags Names Words to International Alzheimers Day working with Alzheimers Disease International.
Windowing
I will devote a whole post (or two) about windowing – but a few notes here. Generally festivals require first priority in a market followed by theatrical followed by community and educational screenings. In other words – most festivals won’t screen a film if it has already screened publicly in their market. Same for theatrical with the exception of festivals.
Length of Window
In Think Outside the Box Office I discussed a variety of windowing strategies – including day and date – and promoting what I termed the “Two-Month Window.” which can still be an effective windowing strategy especially when you have a specific ancillary distribution event happening. For Sam Now we launched theatrical two months prior to the Independent Lens release.
But event theatrical windows are now even more all over the map. Last year one of the first posts I wrote for this Substack was: Day and Date is Dead – Long Live the 9 Month Theatrical Window where I discussed the new long event theatrical windowing strategy. Note the upcoming webinar with Sandi Dubowski whose Sabbath Queen has been in theaters for 10 months now.
Windowing Components of Event Theatrical
As more filmmakers realize that festivals are part of distribution, and that the event nature of festivals is one of the best publicity windows for their films, they are starting to integrate their festival windows with theatrical and even community screenings. Last year two of our releases 1-800-On-Her-Own and Sabbath Queen both launched theatrical relatively soon after their Tribeca premieres.
Scheduling can then become very tricky – trying to balance filmmaker attendance at festivals and theaters. Coordinating bookings between festivals, theatrical and community screenings while keeping eager partners engaged can be a complicated dance causing both festival bookers/theatrical bookers/impact producers pulling their hair out as they jostle for time in the schedule. This is especially true as festivals move into booking year long programming into local arthouse theaters. Having a film in this kind of demand though is a great problem to have.
Not the least consideration of windowing event theatrical is how these windows interact with digital (including broadcast) windows as well as educational and merchandise windows. More on this another time.
Community Community Community
Now more than ever, we need to gather with other humans in community – especially around meaningful art and stories. So let’s stop thinking of “theatrical” as a seven-day booking with fingers crossed. Let’s think of it as what it’s always meant to be: people, gathered in the dark, breathing in sync, experiencing a story that only you could tell.https://jonreiss.substack.com/p/beyond-the-marquee-the-power-of-event-226