Film Festivals: An Empirical Study of Factors for Success

Film festivals have become an increasingly popular method of generating economic benefit to communities, yet there is little mention of this festival segment in the academic literature. Seen as a meeting place between filmmakers, distributors, and viewers, film festivals can be an important factor in enlivening local cultural life, building a town, city, or region's image, and fostering its attractiveness for tourism and thus its economic development. In addition to providing a cultural experience for the local community, and providing economic benefits as a tourist draw, film festivals provide a service to the film industry by supplying a forum for filmmakers to show their films and film buyers and distributors to view them. This article reports on a study of film festival attendees that was undertaken to evaluate the success of a regional film festival and assist film festival managers and sponsors in future planning. Attendee characteristics and festival experience were evaluated, as well the festival's economic impact on the local community. The article also provides an overview of unique characteristics of the film festival industry.