A friend emailed me recently asking how one goes about attending the Toronto International Film Festival. I wrote a long email explaining how it works, especially the quirky advanced lottery process, and realized that it’s probably the third time I’ve explained it in such detail. I decided to strip out names and details and post my response here, so that I can just point to it next time someone asks.

“We’re thinking of attending TIFF this year – being newb’s, what do we need to know? Was just at tiff08.ca and gave them my email address – looks like ticket info hasn’t yet been established. Can you describe the general process of acquiring tickets and picking films to attend?”

OK, well…there’re a few different ways. Being that you’re in another city some of those options become more difficult, but hardly impossible. The link isn’t active yet, but the TIFF website should soon have a section called “How to Festival” which explains it in detail, but it’s a little hard to follow for first-time attendees.

The first thing to figure out is how many movies you want to see. If you want to see less than five films, it makes sense to wait until late August / early September when the single tickets go on sale. A couple of days before the first screening (Fri Sep 5 this year) the tickets for all films still available (some sell out during the advanced draw…more on that in a minute) go on sale on the website. They’ll be about $21 each at that point, if I remember right.

If you want to do five or more, I’d recommend going into the advanced draw. What that means is that some time in July (I think) packages will go on sale on the website for 10 films, 30 films, 50 films, etc. When you buy those you don’t choose your films, you just reserve a place in the advanced draw for n screenings. In late August they publish the list of films, and then the schedule; on the day they publish the schedule — the last Tuesday, usually — you go to the box office here in Toronto and pick up your selection forms. If you’re from out of town, I believe they FedEx it to you.

Let’s say you buy a 10-film package and your package arrives on Wednesday. You make a 1st choice and 2nd choice for all 5 films (assuming you want 2 tickets for each screening). You do this in case your first choice is already sold out. Try to keep the 1st and 2nd choice in the same time slot; it’s easier to keep track of your schedule and you avoid time conflicts. You fill out the submission form using their crazy little colored highlighter system and FedEx it back to Toronto. When it arrives it goes, in order of arrival, into a numbered box for the advanced lottery; Friday noon is the cutoff time. Let’s say your envelope lands in box #55. On Friday afternoon the TIFF announces the box that’s drawn in the lottery. Let’s say there are 60 boxes in all, and they draw box #8.

What this means is they start in box #8 and give everyone there their first choice of screenings. They continue on to box #9, and so on, in order. When they get to someone who’s requested a screening that’s sold out, they go to that person’s second choice. If that second choice is also sold out, that person gets nothing for that slot…more on that in a minute. When they get to the last box (#60, for this example), they go back to box #1 and continue from there. I’ve been very close to the drawn box, and I’ve been very far away. Even the year that I figured I was screwed, I still went 14 for 15 with either my 1st or 2nd choice. Of course, it also depends which screenings you choose: if you’re out for the hot tickets with the big stars, your chances are worse in the crunch than if you went for slightly more obscure titles.

Some time on Saturday or Sunday you’ll get an email telling you what movies you got, and whether you have any that came up empty. On Monday — Labour Day — you line up at Yonge & College to pick up your tickets and, if you missed out on any of your choices, to select a new screening. I’ve only had to do this once, and if you go prepared (i.e., knowing your schedule) it’s no trouble. I’m not sure how out-of-towners do this, to be honest, but I’m sure there’s an existing process. They deliberately make it complicated, I think, to weed out the casually interested movie-goer. It sounds complex, but we’ve walked other people through it.

The other alternative, and it’s a pretty good one for first-timers, is the Visa Screening Room. You need a Visa (obviously) and I think it has to be a gold card, but here’s how it works: when the packages go on sale on the website you can get two Visa Screening Room packages (there are two options, the early screenings and the late screenings…two different films each night). It gives you eight films in eight nights at the same theatre, at the same time each night. You have no choice over what you see — you won’t know the lineup until later — but they tend toward “bigger” films as the Elgin (aka, Visa Screening Room) is one of the best theatres. Obviously if you’re not planning to spend eight nights here, this won’t work for you, but it takes out all the guesswork and scheduling and rushing between theatres. The catch is that you have to move fast: these packages sell out the same day they go on sale, probably within hours.

General tips:

• Stars/directors usually only show up for the first screening of a film (or, in some cases, the screening at a big venue). If seeing the stars or asking the director questions is important to you, aim for earlier screenings and/or screenings at venues like the Elgin or Ryerson.
• Sorting through 500+ films can be tough; I, being a geek, tend to put the schedule into Excel right away and start filtering by what I want to see, what my wife wants to see, what times just don’t work, short films, etc., etc. Then it’s just down to juggling the schedule and deciding between two films you really want to see. If you go the single-ticket route and skip the advanced draw, then it’s quite easy.
• Every year you get the option to buy the ‘Bible’, the giant catalog of films. It’s $40, but I like to get it because 1) it’s a nice memento, and 2) it’s somehow easier to be captivated by the description of a film in this book than on the website. Don’t ask, I don’t know why, it just is. Must be the fresh, chemical-y ink.
• I’ve found the films I enjoyed the most were the ones that I didn’t see coming. Really memorable ones like Day Night Day Night, Requiem or Blindsight didn’t have a single actor I recognized, but there was just something about the description that grabbed me. I’ve had reasonable success, I think, because I don’t go for either the really big OR the really obscure.
• Skip screenings at Roy Thompson Hall. They’re gala events, very expensive, always sold out and really only interesting if you’re press or a starfucker. The film will always play, sans star & red carpet, at another theatre. Also, Galas generally come out in theatres two weeks after the festival ends, so I tend to skip ’em. Again, this comes down to whether you’re drawn to star power or the films themselves.
• Leave time between screenings. While the website tells you exactly how long the film is, there’s always an intro, there’s often a Q&A afterward, delays are frequent, some theatres are far apart, and if you want a good seat you’ll be in line at least 30 minutes before the showtime. I always build at least 90 minutes between when I expect movie A should finish and movie B should begin.
• This blog is pretty good: he’s an out-of-towner and describes every detail of the advanced lottery process. No 2008 update as yet.

Hope that helps.