Partnership Leads to Record Festival Ticket Sales
Jan Costello
April 13, 2007

The backstage hero of the seventh Atlanta Jewish Film Festival deserves a standing ovation.

This year's festival grew by 20 percent over last year, with 9,000 tickets sold. The growth is in large part due to a brilliant Web site application.

"The way we used to do it [on the Web site] was totally impractical and costly," said Kenny Blank, executive director of the festival, which showcases internationally acclaimed films about Jewish life, culture and history.

"It took a long time to refine things," said Rick Rose, Web design technologist at TechBridge. "A time for a showing would change, and the information was in several places and had to be manually updated."

Not one who appreciates mindless, repetitive tasks, Rose knew he could design a better way.

The film festival hired TechBridge to do just that. A nonprofit organization that helps other nonprofits use technology to better serve their communities, and charges affordable rates, TechBridge spent about 180 hours -- one of its largest projects ever ­-- and created a vibrant, interactive Web site that lets viewers search for films, see trailers and order tickets.

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival is a celebration of "great films with a Jewish twist," say the organizers, who screen hundreds of films before selecting the best. For this seventh festival, the lineup included 38 films from 13 countries. They were screened at three Atlanta theaters over a one-week period in January.

TechBridge created a search engine with interactive content. Viewers can search by country of origin, subject matter, genre or the film itself.

Up pops information on the film, streaming video clips, the names and pedigree of guest lecturers on the film, the time and place of the showings, and, of course, an option to buy tickets.

In addition to boosting sales, the application saves organizers time.

"It gives us the power to better manage the content of the site ourselves," Blank said. "We can make changes immediately. Being empowered to control our own Web site represents real cost savings for the film festival."

TechBridge began helping the Atlanta Jewish Film Festival for the 2006 season. The technicians only had time to update the content, but they quickly saw that a new system was needed.

Prior to this season, they launched a comprehensive planning phase so that they could get the application exactly right.

"We produced flowcharts and recommendations, listing various features they could implement," Rose said.

The Atlanta Jewish Film Festival prioritized the list.

"That worked really well," Rose said. "We could fit everything in, and we determined which things they might like to do in the future so that to go back and add in wouldn't require redesigning anything."

Festival organizers are looking at improvements for next year, including making the purchasing experience similar to the shopping cart model that many online vendors follow.

"We have one of the most sophisticated Web sites I've seen," Blank said. "It's on a level with Tribeca or Sundance. Certainly other performing arts organizations, really any organization putting on performances or programming, could benefit from this."

Two of the audience's favorite films are being shown as an encore. Showing on April 22 are "Olga," about a German-Jewish Communist activist who is betrayed in Brazil, and "The Rape of Europa," a documentary about the theft and destruction of European artwork by the Nazis during World War II and the efforts to restore the masterpieces to their rightful owners.

For more information, visit the Web site www.atlantajewishfilm.org.