Asheville Film Festival focuses on image, not cash
by Paul Clark, PCLARK@CITIZEN-TIMES.COM | published November 9, 2006 12:15 am
ASHEVILLE — Is a film festival that usually loses money worth it to Asheville?
Sure, if you consider the valuable exposure the Asheville Film Festival this weekend gives the city, people involved in the local film industry say. Additionally, it brings hundreds of people to Asheville, where they spend money on food and drink.
Still, the film festival is too young to have much of an impact on local people involved in the film industry, some believe. One of hundreds of film festivals in the United States, it’s hard to make a ripple these days, they say.
“What we have here is a brand-new festival that we’re still ironing out,” said Butch Kisiah, who oversees the city Parks and Recreation division that puts on the Asheville Film Festival.
Scott Varn of Harmony Interiors calibrates the digital projector that will be used during the Asheville Film Festival at Diana Wortham Theatre.
Dollars to doughnuts
Parks and Recreation created the festival four years ago to broaden the number and scope of people attracted to Asheville.
Excluding the costs of staffing, the festival made about $12,000 in 2004, its second year, but lost twice as much in 2005. So why did the festival post a profit in 2004 but take a dive into the red last year?
“Advance ticket sales were really strong (in 2004), double what we did last year, as well as our sponsorship dollars were up that year,” said city festival coordinator Melissa Porter.
Ticket sales just were not as strong last year. Also, the city did about $20,000 in out-of-market advertising in 2004, and Porter said she thinks that made a difference in ticket sales.
Despite the fluctuating bottom line, the festival’s value can’t be gauged in dollars, said Alison Watson, chairperson of the Asheville Film Commission.
“The Asheville Film Festival serves the community by holding a vital cultural event where filmmakers can showcase their work,” she said. “The intention of the festival is not to succeed financially but to continue serving the artists and the audience. That is where the true value lies.”
It’s also in the exposure it brings to the city and region, places rich in movie locations and industry veterans who already live here, said Lee Nesbitt, the festival’s executive director and a Film Commission member.
“It’s not just the people that the festival brings into Asheville to see the films and tour the area. It’s what they take back with them,” she said. “The festival not only attracts filmmakers and moviegoers but ultimately tourism.”
Last year’s festival lost $24,000, according to festival budget figures from Parks and Recreation.
The deficit came out of the city’s festival enterprise fund, which is meant to pay the entirety of the four festivals the city puts on — the film festival, Bele Chere, Fourth of July and Downtown Countdown.
That’s less than the loss from the film festival’s inaugural year, 2003, when the balance sheet showed a $52,000 loss.
But the fund doesn’t fully pay the costs, according to Kisiah, whose recreation division oversees all four festivals. Bele Chere and July 4th make money, and Downtown Countdown “more or less” breaks even, he said.
Overall, the film festival has fallen short, but it’s still doing its job by increasing the city’s profile nationally, Kisiah believes.
“If you have a filmmaker who uses Asheville as a location (as a result of the festival), then we’re doing what we need to be doing,” he said.
Impact elusive
The Asheville Area Chamber of Commerce’s Convention and Visitors Bureau doesn’t track the number of people who attend the film festival, as it can the number of people who attend conferences and conventions in town, said Marla Tambellini, assistant vice president/director of marketing and public relations.
“With conventions and conferences, we know how many ‘room night’ stays those involve, and we can apply estimated spend-per-persons (formulas). But with festivals and events, that’s very difficult to do,” she said.
“From an anecdotal standpoint,” she continued, “certainly the film festival has grown over last couple of years. There has been more investment in promoting the event ‘out of market.’ As awareness has grown, more people from outside this area are coming in and staying overnight. And when that happens, they are going to drop significant dollars.”
During the festival, the city gets additional sales tax money from the meals and merchandise people buy, Kisiah said. And it gets to show itself off to the outside world.
“If those things are of value, the city needs to say that (the film festival deficit) is a worthwhile expense,” Kisiah said.
Distributors wanted
The Asheville Film Festival is a good direction for filmmaking in town, but the festival is still too young to attract many film distributors, said Marion Williams, producer and executive producer of the feature film “A Dance for Bethany,” shot in August in 20 locations in Asheville.
Attracting distributors — the people who buy films — is difficult these days, he said.
“Every village has a film festival anymore,” Williams said. “There are only so many distributors and buyers. They only go to festivals with a track record.”
That takes a while to establish, Kisiah said. Bele Chere, the city’s popular summer festival, took several years to catch on.
To get a better rep, Asheville needs to be more film-friendly, Williams said. The Asheville Film Commission doesn’t have a Web site with a directory of local talent. Williams hired his people through the N.C. Film Commission in Raleigh, then found out he could have gotten the local people he preferred through the directory operated by the WNC Film Commission (www.wncfilm.net).
The commission is a program of the AdvantageWest, the economic development agency for the western part of the state.
Doughnuts, not dollars
In 2004, the Asheville Film Festival Committee hired Western Carolina University’s Center for Regional Development to survey some of the 8,800 people who attended the festival that year.
Surveys, announced before screenings, were taken at Diana Wortham Theatre, Fine Arts Theatre and Asheville Community Theatre. Altogether, 635 people responded.
Of those polled, 388 people estimated they spent an average of $133 during the festival. Only 83 stayed in local hotels, spending an average of $119 for lodging.
Nearly all 635 respondents said they planned to return for the 2005 festival.
People complained in the surveys, however, that many films were sold out — a problem that has been with the festival since it started.
WCU’s survey analysts also noted that less than a third of the respondents attended the previous year’s festival, the inaugural Asheville Film Festival, indicating dissatisfaction with the festival in 2003.
Mary Trimarco, director of the WNC Film Commission, doesn’t put too much stock in the WCU study, at least now.
“That was awhile ago,” she said. “Film festivals take awhile.”
There are 900 of them in the United States, so it’s difficult to stand out. The Sundance Film Festival, perhaps the best known in the country, took years to get going, she said.
Porter agrees. “It can sometimes take up to five years to establish the groundwork with the community and visitors when starting a new event,” she said.
Porter also said ticket sales look strong this year.
“We just sold out of closing night party, five days before the event,” she pointed out Wednesday.
“Asheville is very lucky to have this event simply because everyone in Asheville seems to want it,” said Stephen Keep Mills, a returning filmmaker who will show his film “A Cigar at the Beach” during this weekend’s festival.
“The audience is unusual,” he said, “in that it really is curious and interested and supportive of so-called independent fare — just great for filmmakers who feel absolutely vindicated and excited by the scope of the reception they receive there.”
