SARASOTA, FL - November 7, 2006 - After revolutionizing the way movie aficionados experience film festivals online, the Sarasota Film Festival has retained atLarge, Inc. to develop its interactive campaign for the 2007 festival. The 2006 campaign allowed SFF to reach a more intimate level of audience participation, and the new site promises to add and improve upon the original vision.
SFF Executive Director Jody Kielbasa said selecting atLarge for this pivotal role was obvious because of the incredible results atLarge delivered to the festival in 2006. “I was absolutely thrilled with the work atLarge did for last year’s festival. atLarge really over-delivered on our expectations and I am anticipating even more phenomenal results this year."
Among many improvements, the site allowed users to select and purchase their complete festival event and movie tickets online, integrate it into their Outlook calendar and synch it with their PDA. As a result, ticket sales skyrocketed by more than 250 percent, and drew raves from customers about the added convenience.
atLarge conceptualized and created My/SFF, a visitor engagement portal that fostered personalized relationships through the entire festival experience. The technology allowed festival patrons to bookmark particular movies, build a schedule online and to purchase tickets quickly and efficiently with easy access to transactional information.
Kielbasa said that since the launch of the redesigned site, traffic has exploded with over 4,000 My/SFF registrations. "The quality of demographic information we’re collecting is unsurpassed from year’s prior and the average user session has increased by 200 percent from last year’s site. I’m absolutely thrilled with the campaign atLarge developed, especially the increased site traffic and the increased online sales. I look forward to working with them in the future and building on our success."
The site has been hailed as one of the most innovative festival Web sites in North America. It provides a highly interactive experience for patrons, film makers, media and industry insiders. Though jam-packed with information, the site’s intuitive navigation provides seamless information retrieval. “This is just the tip of the iceberg," says Anand Pallegar, owner of atLarge, Inc. "Jody has a great vision for the festival and we’re excited to communicate that by using cutting-edge technology that’s never been seen in a film festival Web site."
