Parting Thoughts on the Tribeca Film Festival

Before the Tribeca Film Festival began, it was grabbing headlines by upping ticket prices and moving beyond the confines of the Tribeca neighborhood in Manhattan and spreading throughout the city. Co-founder Jane Rosenthal has been public about the $13 million cost of the festival, and the fact that it’s been losing about $1 million every year since it started.

How did the festival do this year?

I’ve been searching the blogs and have been unable to find out how they did in terms of ticket sales and house sizes. It’s a big and sprawling festival (something I know about, having covered and been involved with the Seattle International Film Festival since 1992), but I was wondering if the increased ticket price resulted in smaller audiences, especially for some of the movies that didn’t have buzz.

Eugene Hernandez's coverage in indieWIRE was pretty typical: “So to wrap up TFF '07, we are putting aside criticisms about the festival and its ticket-prices to single out some of the best movies that this year's festival had to offer.”

Slant Magazine takes the same, er, slant: "'$18 a damn ticket?’ was a common refrain heard during this year's Tribeca Film Festival, and when you consider it's a higher chunk of change than nearly any North American festival, one wonders why the excess should be allowed. But on further review, one realizes it's just in the spirit of New York, where everyone pays regularly twice for about half, and it's all about the bragging rights.”

And the New York paper The Sun adds some anecdotal evidence of seeing long lines for screenings, and the idea that bigger is better as indicators of success. Plus, they talked to a few filmmakers: “Talking to a handful of independent filmmakers who came to Tribeca with their projects, it's clear that in only six years the festival has steadily climbed the list of the world's most important places for up-and-comers to screen work in competition.”

The good news is that the festival did succeed in showing a lot of really good movies. Every write-up is having an easy time picking out favorites.

I guess my main question is: Was the ticket hike a success? Or did the price increase drop attendance and cancel the financial benefit? If it was a success and it didn’t dissuade casual filmgoers from attending less-hyped screenings, will that influence other festivals to raise their prices? My best guess (based on no information but gut instinct) is that next year they’ll drop their ticket prices to $15 (still more than most festivals, who charge the equivalent of first-run movie prices), and benefit from the subsequent good press.

Nevertheless, the success of the programming at Tribeca bodes well for the next year or two of indie film releases.

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