How to Plan, Promote and Host Your Screening
Made possible with the support of
This package has been designed to help you plan, promote and host your screening
by providing resources to make the event as successful as possible. It is divided
into easy-to-follow sections with tips on budgeting, securing co-presenters, marketing
and promotion, and more. We hope this package provides you with the tools to
create a valuable experience for you and your community.
1. Planning Your Screening
Hosting a film screening is a great way to bring your community together, to educate and raise awareness about a particular
issue, attract new members to your organization, or simply to screen a powerful and inspiring documentary film. As you prepare
for your event, here is a planning checklist:
Select a Venue. The venue you choose will be based on your budget and on how many people you anticipate will attend your
screening. Community centres, libraries, schools and churches can often be rented at a low cost. A movie theatre is a great
option for a large screening with 100+ people but will have increased rental fees. Take into consideration venues close to public
transportation and public parking.
Develop a Budget. You will need to think about the potential cost of venue, refreshments, audio visual equipment, printing
of marketing materials, advertising, speaker/guest fees, etc. Determine your admission price and the number of tickets you
will need to sell in order to pay for the aforementioned items. How much of that revenue will go toward marketing/venue/
refreshments?
Select a Date. When selecting a date to hold your screening, take into consideration other local events that may be happening
at the same time. You don’t want your audience to be split due to conflicting events of similar interest. Or, to avoid competition
and potentially expand your audience, consider partnering with another event that might complement your screening.
Consider Logistics & Equipment. In order to facilitate the screening, you may require audio visual equipment such as a Blu-Ray
player, projector, screen, microphone, speakers, computer with Internet or Wi-Fi access, etc.
Sponsorship Opportunities. To offset costs, you can seek out sponsorship opportunities. Approach local businesses who may
be willing to donate product, such as food and beverages, prizing, or audio visual equipment, and offer them recognition and
promotion on your marketing materials and website.
Invite Special Guests & Speakers. Adding special guests and speakers to your event can help draw a crowd and facilitate
discussion following the screening. Potential guests and speakers could range from the filmmaker, city councillors or government
officials, a local expert such as a university professor, or even a media personality from a radio or television station.
Secure Volunteers. Having a handful of great volunteers can be a huge help for your screening event.
Encourage people to get involved through your website or social media channels. You can also target film, arts, and
communications programs at local post-secondary institutions. Don’t forget to reward your volunteers by providing free
access to the screening and/or other events.
DRAGON GIRLS
2. Promoting Your Screening
There are a variety of ways you can get the word out there to your community and the local media in order to help you generate
an audience for your screening. Here are some low-cost and free tools you can use to help you spread the word, create a buzz,
and gain an audience.
MARKETING
Promotional Materials
Posters and flyers can be created at a low cost and can be very effective in promoting your event. These materials are
a great way to reach the general public, rather than just your existing community and supporters. The purpose of promotional
materials is to be eye-catching and to provide all the most important details. These materials can be as simple as an
8.5 x 11 size document created in Microsoft Word. You can either print them on your workplace copier or at a low-cost printing
place. Be sure to include: film name, date, time, location and address of the screening, admission cost, sponsors and/or
co-presenters logos, and website.
You can also add pull quotes and/or notable awards the film has received to these materials to help entice your audience.
Posters and flyers can be distributed to local businesses, coffee shops, restaurants, community bulletin boards, libraries,
university and college campuses, etc. Recruit friends, family and volunteers to help distribute these materials in their
neighbourhood. Attend other local film screenings and see if you can hand out your flyers there. To allow sufficient time
for promotion, try to get these materials out 2-3 weeks prior to the screening.
The Hot Docs Showcase logo should be used on all promotional material. Text acknowledgement should appear as follows:
[Film Name] presented in partnership with the Hot Docs Showcase.
A customizable poster/flyer template can be found in the media resource downloads section:
http://www.hotdocs.ca/showcase/downloads.
ADVERTISING
If you have the budget to purchase advertising in the newspaper, online and/or on the radio, this can be a great tool for
promoting your screening. Take into consideration the potential target audience for your screening and reach out to media
outlets with similar audiences.
You can also get in contact with local media outlets to see if they might be interested in presenting and/or sponsoring your
screening in return for tickets to the event which they can giveaway as they chose.
PUBLICITY
Press Release
This free publicity and exposure can be a great way to build a large audience for your event. Issuing a press release and
contacting local media with details on your event is one of the best ways to potentially get a feature story, interview
or write-up about your screening. Start by researching all of your local media outlets (newspapers, radio and television
stations, weekly publications). You can either email the press release directly to your local arts, entertainment, community
and news editors or, some websites have a general section for submitting press releases.
You can also get in contact with local film reviewers and consider personally inviting them to the screening.
And don’t forget about the online bloggers - they can be a great resource for sharing your event amongst their audiences too.
Best practice is to send your press release one month in advance of your screening. Follow up your email with a personal phone
call and send a follow-up email one week prior to the event as a reminder.
Event Listings
Identify radio, television, print and online publications with free weekly event listings or community event calendars. Send your
screening information to be included a minimum of two weeks in advance.
CO-PRESENTATIONS
Establishing screening co-presentations by involving other organizations, groups, associations, and non-profits, can help broaden
your reach and establish new beneficial partnerships. These partners can help spread the word about your screening via their
own members, email listservs, social media, website, etc.
The key to securing a good co-presenter is to help them understand how your event complements their goals as an organization
and how they will benefit from being associated with you and your screening. A good co-presenter will have similar values
and/or audiences. In return for their assistance as a co-presenter, it is customary to offer tickets to attend the screening, logo
and/or text recognition on all materials, and provide the opportunity for them to distribute and/or display their own promotional
materials and literature at the screening.
Get in contact with these potential co-presenters by sending them an email with details about your screening.
THE MANOR
OUTREACH
Brainstorm a list of local organizations, clubs, communities, libraries, independent bookstores/video stores, etc. that might be
willing to circulate information about your screening to their supporters. Consider targeting organizations and/or groups with
audiences that will be interested in the subject matter of your film.
ONLINE PROMOTION
Website
Your organization or group website should be the number one place you promote your screening. Ensure to keep all screening
information up to date. If possible, create an event banner/button on your homepage to highlight the screening.
Social Media
Social media channels are free and easy-to-use tools available to help you promote your screening. You can share information,
facilitate conversations, build your community, post photos and videos, and so much more.
It is important to keep your social media accounts up to date so that your audience can stay engaged and informed about your
event. If someone at your organization does not have the time to dedicate to social media updates, consider hiring a student
volunteer to keep your accounts current and continue a dialogue.
If the film and/or filmmaker has social media accounts, be sure to follow/like them and tag them in your messaging about the
screening. Using the @ sign before their username will automatically link to their profile. For example, @hotdocs. In return, they
might even help promote your event on their channels!
Facebook makes it easy to create an online event, send invites and track RSVP’s. Send the event invite to everyone on your
networks and ask them to share it with their own networks.
Here’s a great step-by-step guide to creating and managing your event: http://mashable.com/2009/10/14/facebook-events-guide/
For more, check out the Facebook Guide Book from Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/guidebook/facebook/
Twitter is an effective tool for spreading online word-of-mouth about your event. Encourage your members/friends to
tweet about the screening. Use the hashtag symbol (#) to precede relevant keywords in your tweets or to geotag
your city/location. This is a simple way for people to search for tweets that have a common topic and to help organize
and track mentions of your event.
Hashtags: #HotDocsShowcase, #hotdocs, #ontario, #documentary, #film, #[filmname]
For more, check out the Twitter Guide Book from Mashable.com: http://mashable.com/guidebook/twitter/
Social Media Best Practices
• Engage with your followers often
• Use language that shows off your personality
• Keep messages short if you want them to be shared/retweeted
• Use a link shortener like Bit.ly to track the popularity of your link (https://bitly.com/)
• Reference people/groups in your posts and tweets by tagging their username
Contesting
A fun way to spread the word about your event while engaging your audience is to run a contest through social media.
You can giveaway tickets to the screening itself or giveaway prizing such as a sponsored gift certificate or other merchandise.
For best results, run the contest over the course of a few hours and no longer than a 24-hour period. Here are a few ideas
to get you started:
• Film Trivia—before you announce the screening, post a series of clues about the film and ask your fans/followers guess
the title. The first person to respond can win or winner(s) can be selected randomly from all those who responded correctly.
• ‘I Deserve to Win Because...’—have your fans/followers complete this sentence as to why they deserve to win tickets.
You might get some really fun responses!
• Submit a Photo—ask your fans/followers to upload a photo of themself doing something related to the film. Choose
winners based on different categories, such as most unique or funny.
• Like/Retweet/Comment to Win—ask your fans/followers to retweet an update or like/comment on a photo to win. The
winner(s) can then be selected randomly from all those who commented or liked the photo. Once the contesting is over
and winner(s) selected, don’t forget to congratulate them on your public feed and then send them a private message with
detailed instructions for picking up their prizing.
Email, eNewsletters and E-vites
Take advantage of email/subscriber lists and eNewsletters your organization or group might have to spread the word about your
screening. Include a link to your Facebook event in your email and ask your friends, family and co-workers to forward the email
on to their networks.
Send the initial email two-three weeks in advance of the event with a follow-up reminder email a few days prior.
There are also a number of free online e-invitation services, such as www.evite.com which make it easy to design and send
e-vites to your screening.
THE GHOSTS IN OUR MACHINE
3. Hosting Your Screening
The day of your screening has finally arrived! Here are some last minute tips and reminders:
Tech Check—be sure to test your audio visual equipment to ensure there are no issues.
Prep Your Volunteers—make sure your volunteers have all the information they need to be able to answer any audience questions.
Co-Presenter Material—your co-presenters may want to have their own promotional material or literature available at your
screening. Ensure you have a place to feature or distribute these materials.
Sign-In Sheets—capture audience member email addresses so that you can send follow-up correspondence. As an incentive,
you can even use a ballot box and prizing to secure contact information.
Take Photos & Videos —ake photos and/or videos of your event and share them on social media after the screening.
Live Tweet—designate someone from your organization with a smart phone to be your live tweeter at the event.
Final Reporting - following the screening, make sure to report final box office numbers to Hot Docs and remit film rental fees
to the distributor. This information will be provided to you at the time of booking.
Post Screening Q&A/Discussion—Engaging the audience in a discussion post-film can be a valuable addition to the
screening, to further educate and enhance the overall experience. Prepare a set of questions in advance to help guide the
discussion, such as:
• What questions did the film raise?
• After watching the film, have your opinions about the issues changed?
• How did the film confirm or contradict previous information you had heard?
• How can we as a community get involved and take action?
Skype Q&A’s
If in-person guests and speakers are not possible, Skype Q&A’s are an easy to facilitate second option. You will need access
to Internet or a Wi-Fi connection. Here is a good user guide for setting up and coordinating a Skype session:
https://support.skype.com/en/user-guides
If you are interested in having the filmmaker attend your screening and participate in a Q&A, please contact [email protected].
WE WANT TO HEAR FROM YOU!
Tell us how your screening went by emailing [email protected]. Feel free to include photos of the event!
We hope this resource package has been helpful. For questions not answered in this resource package, please
contact [email protected]. Enjoy your screening!