CANNES - A FESTIVAL VIRGIN'S GUIDE
Updates to the book
Festival Changes
16-May-2007
New for 2007 at the festival...
Security guards have new uniforms. After more than a decade in rather dated blue, the official wardrobe of the festival security personnel has been updated to a more casual sandy beige. Whether this has any effect on their temperament is yet to be seen.
Market screening rooms. The festival has added some more screening rooms in the Riviera. These are referred to as "Lerins" (after the islands off the coast of Cannes) and can be found on the first floor (i.e. upstairs) in the Riviera.
Ticketing. Just when you thought a bad system couldn't get in any worse... For several years now getting tickets for the competition screenings has been a massive bugbear at Cannes. The move three years ago to an amateurish web site, with painfully pour usability has made getting tickets to a specific screening a bit of a lottery.
For 2007, this system has been "suplimented" with a points system which allows accreditees to "purchase" tickets using points. Different flavours of accreditation bestow different levels of points to start with, and points increase over the duration of the festival at a rate of around 2 points per hour.
When you want to attend a competition screening, you need to use your available points to purchase a ticket. The price of a ticket is dependent on the profile of the film and the screening time. For example, that latest Tarantino film, showing at 7.30pm, costs 100 points (the entire intial allocation for someone with Festival accreditation), whereas a largely unknown Asian film showing at 8.30am could be as little as 30 points.
You have to wonder who advises the festival on its web strategy, because clearly it's amateur-hour all around. Oh for the days when you just had to get up early, line up for a few hours, and you'd be guaranteed a ticket.