A week after attending my first film festival, I traveled to New York City to attend the Tribeca Film Festival. I applied a lot of the things I learned from the first film fest, and as a result, had a much smoother experience just one week later.
For starters, I only drove to a nearby train station, leaving my car behind and avoiding the alarm going off every time I unlocked my car and started it up (I hadn’t been able to fix this in one week’s time). While this did lead to a lengthy walk between Grand Central and the cineplex where the films were being shown, this wasn’t really much different from traveling from my hotel to where the movie was showing the week before, so this was a wash.
My ticket was also digital, because I bought them so late that they couldn’t be mailed, and because the festival was already well under way (I was going to the last day), there was no longer a place to pick them up. My tickets were emailed to me, which was excellent because I didn’t have to go to another location to pick them up just to watch the movies, I could just show them the email on my phone to scan. This again was all that was available, not a deliberate choice I made based on knowledge I could apply.
What I did apply from my experience at the first festival was picking screening that were in the same spot. This was kind of taking out of my hands because one of the few ticket options remaining were for screenings in the same theater, but after experiencing it, I can absolutely see the wisdom behind it. The screenings were essentially back to back, so once one movie was done, I was able to hop right in line for the next one, without having to factor in the time to travel to another location.
It overall led to a much more relaxed and enjoyable experience than the week before. The movies I had bought tickets for had also been voted among the best movies by the Tribeca audience earlier, so I was watching two films that had already been vetted.
An added perk, not anything I would’ve learned from the previous week’s trials, was that these screenings were in the Regal RPX theaters, so it was my first time experiencing the wider, comfier seating that they had to offer. It didn’t sway me from ever buying these seats for any movies I’ve gone to since, but I definitely appreciated the added comfort.
After watching two movies back to back, I still had plenty of time before the last train out of Grand Central headed out, enough to fit in one movie with maybe a slightly tighter window than I would’ve wanted to get back to catch the last train. But, as I had already enjoyed some films, and with the agony at the end of the night a week ago after cramming in too many showtimes in one day, I decided to settle for the enjoyment I’d already had and catch the next train out, which I appreciated as it allowed me to get home early enough to unwind a little after the excursion into the city.
All in all, it was a much better experience than the previous festival had been, but that enjoyment was in large part due to the mistakes I had to learn from during the first festival.