You’re Great… But Your Festival Still Needs an Operations Team
By Anna Hanson, Director of Operations for Dancing Spider Film Festival
We’ve all stood in a line for way too long before we realized it was either the wrong line or not a line but actually a tour group that you weren’t a part of. We’ve all been told the price of a ticket is $25 only to find out there’s some nonsense transaction fee when we go to purchase them. We’ve all experienced or witnessed the confusion about protocol in terms of handicap accessibility. And we’ve all been victims of poor operations at one point or another. If you’ve worked operations for a film festival or events of any kind you’ve learned to read the fine print and expect disaster.
The relationship between Programming and Operations is symbiotic and ideally mutualistic. The structure of a successful film festival has Programming and Operations on the same level instead of one having more power than the other. I’ve worked festivals where this imbalance of power was problematic from the start. Yes, you need a great program to attract patrons and filmmakers, but you need a great operation to get those same filmmakers and patrons to tell all their friends about you and maybe return again next year.
Nobody should notice the operations. The highlight SHOULD be the program but you can’t have a successful event if nobody knows where to go or what to do.
The programming staff works overtime in the lead up to the festival and then it’s their time to engage with the filmmakers and audience about the films that they’ve chosen and everything that goes into the medium we’ve built these events around. Festival time is when the Ops team steps in and takes over.
Humans Need Information (and they also need rules)
For whatever reason, people assume they can do anything they damn well please unless they’re told explicitly not to do that very specific thing. Signs are great, but beware of signage exhaustion. Signage should cover wayfinding and your Ops people should be responsible for the rest of the rules. Even if those rules are as explicit as, “No sir, you may not film this movie, please refrain from felonies.”
Your venue workers will be peppered with unending questions. Who are you? Where do I go? Where do I stand? Why wasn’t this movie exactly what I wanted it to be and who can I hold responsible for my personal expectations not being met? If your festival doesn’t have an Ops team or even worse, if your festival only has volunteers with no Ops team to manage them, who will field these questions? Nobody. Because nobody has the time to do Ops unless their job is to do Ops. Every piece of logistics that goes into a festival is worth paying for and nobody should ever be expected to exert attention and indulge the lunacy of the masses for no pay. Even if you can only pay one ops person a very modest sum of money, that’s better than five volunteers. It’s not fun and it’s not glamorous and that’s why Ops is often overlooked.
So many festivals don’t see a need for basic things like stanchions to mark lines, venue flow for egress, first aid kits, internal communication (walkies are the standard, end of discussion), org charts, or even the layout of the program. They don’t see a need for them because they’re approaching it from an artist point of view instead of a patron point of view. The artist’s point of view is equally important but will fail without the other half of the puzzle.
Humans Need Consistency
You can have all the right rules but if they’re not enforced consistently and across all venues it’s all for naught. For better or worse customer service is built into Operations. Volunteers also fall under the umbrella of Operations. Programming takes care of the artists and Ops takes care of the patrons. If someone is confused about where to go or what time something starts, that’s an issue that will be brought to the attention to and resolved by Ops. If you have other programming planned such as panels or workshops, the rules for these events should be similar to films. For example, ticket holders should know they do not have a guaranteed seat if they’re not in line 15 minutes (minimum) before start time. That information cannot be given once and expected to be remembered.
Consistency in messaging is more important than consistency in start times. People need to know what’s expected of them and they need to be given accurate information to enjoy all that your festival has to offer. With start times changing and Q&A’s being cancelled, it’s hard to keep printed programs up to date. But, if you are able to coordinate with your venue staff, they can disseminate the program changes.
Humans Need Collaboration
The biggest mistake you can make is to assume Operations doesn’t need the programming info. The flow of communication between Programming and Operations should be constant. It should never be a top-down cycle for information. Ops are there to support the work of Programming and there should be (ideally) no proprietary knowledge between departments. Programming staff should be doing intros and Q&As and chatting with filmmakers at the mixers and representing the festival at events. That is their job during the fest. Too often I’ll work a festival that has no Ops support because the festival director has been doing everything since the fest began. Shockingly, these festivals are always stacked with great films but lack any (ANY) infrastructure for the patron experience. Sometimes the hardest part of my operations job is convincing the festival director that they don’t need to be doing the work of plebeians. It’s hard to let go of any project you’ve worked really hard for and overseen for years. It’s even more difficult to convince someone that in order for their work to succeed, they need to offload half of the work. Hire someone you trust, give them what they need and watch your festival flourish.
Anna and her brothers started Dancing Spider Film Festival as an offshoot of their publication. Nosebleeds Magazine showcases up and comers in the entertainment industry.
