Film festivals’ adaptation to the online space: Conceptualizing the strategy to engage online audiences

For almost a century, film festivals have continuously developed physically while creating spaces for interacting and sharing the experience. Despite innovating on movies, activities and places, film festivals have been conservative in their format until the internet started disrupting all the established business models. Since then, a few festivals stepped into the digital world to expand the offline experience, although they are still new to digitalising the experiences. Nonetheless, with the strike of the Covid-19 pandemics, social interactions were restricted, cancelling any chance of doing film festivals in person. Due to the restrictions, film festivals had to adapt to the online space to ensure its continuance. Changing the traditional form of film festivals supposes a big challenge for its organisers and new opportunities. Using the online world to develop film festivals erases some traditional attendance barriers. For example, in the online space, film festivals can reach audiences from a national level, which erases the hindrance of location. The easiness to join a film festival online might create the belief that film festivals can reach and engage new audiences by developing an online edition. If it is true that the online space is more engaging, film festivals would be able to reach new audiences. Because, even if film festivals have a strong audience basis, these events need to expand their niche audiences to assure the festivals’ continuation. With the Research Question “How to engage new audiences into film festivals through the rise of digital experiences?” this thesis seeks to establish an academic background to understand audiences and use the online space to face the mentioned audience problem. For the purpose of the study, 12 expert interviews were conducted with professionals from the film industry with experience in online film festivals. In conclusion, it is more difficult for people to feel the essence of the festival on the online space as it hinders the feeling of sharing the experience with other people. The consumption feels more individual and unidirectional on the internet, complicating that audiences live the online film festival as a pleasurable and engaging experience. As a solution, film festivals should research the targeted audiences to know what they like to improve the online experience and engage new audiences. Moreover, even if the online space can be distancing, creating unique spaces for interactions inside the online festival might enhance the experience. After analysing the interviews with thematic analysis, the research concludes that film festivals are still on a primary stage in the online world, resulting in experiences that do not help engage new audiences but improve the experience of the existing audiences. Further research needs to be done on the audience’s experience to complement the study. This research also faced some limitations due to the novelty of the situation, as film festivals will not see if the attendance to the festival increases until the next edition