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Sundance at the Music Box in Chicago - Marketing genius
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Sundance Film Festival U.S.A
The Sundance Institute has implemented a simple plan with huge marketing potential. Dispatch filmmakers from the festival to eight U.S. cities for live screenings. Presumably by satellite, audiences will have the ability to interact with festival artists in Utah. And there will be, of course, an obligatory introduction video by Robert Redford.
The Music Box Theater in Chicago will be one of the eight U.S. cities participating. It is being billed as Sundance Film Festival U.S.A.
For those who live in the world of independent films, Robert Redford’s plan to have simulcast screenings is pure marketing genius. Major film festivals have a mystique about them. Sundance, Toronto, Cannes … for most people, are far off inaccessible events where stars gather and where movie careers are made.
Just as Miss America and the Oscars are national events, why not let outside locations see behind the curtain into the mysterious world of independent films? It’s hard to see a downside to this marketing maneuver by the people at Sundance. If successful, the originator of this idea should get credit.
What is not hard to see are other festivals following suit. The question becomes, are film festivals really elite events? Do film festival insiders see themselves as purveyors of the next great film, films that should only be seen by the masses after they give their stamp of approval? After all, the idea to simulcast is not a technological breakthrough, only a breakthrough in mindset.
Given the avant garde nature of film festivals, one possible downside is being open to mainstream criticism, but it appears to be a small point in a gambit that has huge upside potential. This is an opportunity for film festivals to open their events to a much larger audience, a great bonanza if they have the desire.
Each new location will become offspring to the film festival mothership. The potential for expansion is practically limitless. It is a novel idea that is so simple, you have to wonder if there is a catch. One thing is certain, competing film festivals, movie buffs and independent filmmakers will eagerly await the outcome to Sundance Film Festival U.S.A.
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