Berlinale ticket sales - madness!

I have been suspecting this. Look at this picture - a typical queue in front of the Berlinale Ticket counter:

queue at the Berlinale counter

People are waiting for hours; they even camp there a couple of hours or more before the ticket counter opens. We were lucky to score the tickets we did - even with industry accreditation it is not easy to get tickets

So today I wasn't surprised when I read in The Hollywood Reporter that this will be the strongest year in ticket sales at the Berlinale ever: apparantly 270,000 tickets have been sold by the halfway mark, compared to 240,000 tickets sold in total last year.

On the market, buying has happened, but cautiously, according to yesterday's The Hollywood Reporter Berlin Daily. Personally, I am pleased to see that "The Shock Doctrine" has been picked up, as well as "London River", which I unfortunately didn't see, but  I heard great things about it.

There has been much discussion about the link of financing, sales and distribution to "guaranteed" audiences, and in all these discussions the need to have an engaged audience beforehand was the most important factor (apart from having a good movie, obviously). And - as you probably guessed - one effective way to get this audience is to find and engage them online. This has been the conclusion in every panel or personal discussion I have heard here so far. So... if you want to get your movie made, if you want it distributed - go online (well, if you are reading this you are, so stay put!).