ABSTRACT
Unlike most other branding, marketing and promotional activities, the strength of event marketing does not come from its ability to reach broad audiences of tens of thousands of friends and fans. Not surprisingly, there are literally hundreds – if not thousands – of events filmmakers can use to market their films. This chapter categorizes the events into two broad groups: self-hosted events and external events. While self-hosted events present filmmakers a number of benefits, particularly with regard to control, few filmmakers have time and budget to promote their films exclusively through self-hosted events. As with other marketing and promotional campaigns, it's important to incorporate a multiple number of touches across a variety of marketing channels, including social media and website updates. As with other marketing and promotional activities, event marketing should begin long before film's premier – with the film's launch party. The first experience most filmmakers have with panel discussions is with panel that follows their film's official premier.
