How to Tour Your Film to Earn a Revenue and grow Your Audience - The Movies Revolutionized

How to Tour Your Film to Earn a Revenue and Grow Your Audience 

You do not need a sales agent or distributor to get your film into cinemas. If you want to see a theatrical run of your film, it is possible to do this yourself. If you are going to do it yourself, I would suggest making an event of it. 

Tour your film on the road like a band tours. 

Have you heard of the 48 Hour Film Project? It takes place in over 100 cities around the world. Filmmakers have 48 hours to write, shoot, and edit a film. Then those films are screened to audiences in the city they were made. 

It’s that last part that matters.

A producer oversees each cities competition, a local producer runs their cities 48 Hour Film Project on behalf of the national 48HFP company. That producer must secure a cinema to screen the movies AND it is required that the city producer charge tickets for the screenings. The screenings are not free. This is also a way for the producer to earn money for the competition for themselves. 

I launched the 48 Hour Film Project in Savannah, Georgia 15 years ago. During the two years I ran it, I used two different screening venues. One of them was an actual cinema. I rented out the cinema for two nights on a tuesday and a wednesday and sold tickets myself through my own payment processing system. I made a deal with the cinema to rent the theater each night for $300 a night but they get to keep all the money from concessions and also as a company, it was good positioning for them because they are part of something that supports local cinema. 

You can do the same. 

Why would you take your film on the road?

For most indie filmmakers there isn’t a route to get their films to cinemas. Maybe you tried the festival run, it went okay, but no distribution deal. Maybe you didn’t try the festival run, but could not find any sales agents or distributors. So, it felt impossible to get your film into a cinema.

Also, what most indie filmmakers don’t realize is that there are hundreds of independent cinemas (even the cinema chains) that are open to screening other films on “off” nights. Most people do not go to the movies Sunday - Wednesday. That’s four nights where cinemas are pretty dead.

A filmmaker coming to them with a film for one night and making a small event from it, is very interesting for cinemas, especially on one of their off nights.

You take the film on the road because it allows you to show your film in cinemas, grow your audience, and best of all, earn some revenue.

That is revenue that can be used to pay back investors, to pay your self, or to even help fund your next film.

A movie in cinemas feels big, it feels bold. In the audience’s mind, your film must be a “real” movie if it’s going to be in a cinema in their city, even if for only one night.

How do you take your film on the road?

To get the most out of this experience you will want four items in place and I will go into detail of each of the four items.

Your goal will be to take your film from city to city doing individual one or two night screenings with yourself and preferably at times other people behind your film.

Let’s say you are the director, you are touring with your film to each city to be in person for each screening. If possible sometimes bring in your producer, writer, or lead actors. You are not only going to want to screen your film but you will also want to either host a Q&A afterwards or a mingle in the lobby of the cinema. This is very important because more people are inclined to attend knowing the director will be there AND it is also a way to earn extra revenue and collect emails of your audience (this is key because they will help you in your next film and for continued revenue).

The Four Main Ingredients of Successfully Touring Your Film

1. List of Cities

2. Communities

3. Sponsors

4. Products

Let’s go through each of this one by one.

List of Cities

You need to map out all the cities you want to tour your film in. It is best if you can start in your hometown and then drive to the next city within a couple hours. You want to try to get in 2-3 screenings(cities) a week over the course of a 10 week period.

Once you know which cities you will be traveling through, you can look up the cinemas in those cities. You then call the manager and tell them about your plan.

You want to host a one night screening event of your film. Your goal is to have at least 100 audience members. You want to rent the cinema screen (for 2-3 hours) so you can screen the film and host a Q&A afterwards. The cinema gets to keep all the money from concessions and the fee for renting the cinema. You will sell tickets through your own payment processing so that you can keep 100% of the ticket sales.

A bonus approach here is to see if you can convince the cinema to sponsor the event and let you use the cinema screen free of charge.

Communities

Every city has some form of film group, film enthusiasts, and depending on the size of the city, a film office. Many weeks prior to your film screening in each city, find and contact the members of those groups. Let them know you are going to be hosting an event and ask that they share it to all of their members.

Next, find communities that may align with the content of your film. Maybe you have a faith based film, find faith, religious, and church communities to let them know you will be screening your film and it is a one night special event with a meet and greet of the director and/or cast as well as a Q&A, maybe even a mingle in the lobby.

If your film deals with mental illness or with veterans or a children’s film, find the communities that would be interested in that type of film too.

This is the huge free marketing push. You have to put a lot of effort into this.

Your goal should be to get 100 people minimum to the screening.

If you get a lot of feedback for audience, maybe you do two screenings the same day, one at 4pm and one at 7pm.

Sponsors

There are two different kinds of sponsorships you can do here. Soft money sponsorship, like the cinema sponsoring the screen for you, so then you save that money.

Another really good in kind or soft money sponsor is a restaurant. I used to work at Jersey Mike’s subs when I was a teenager. For a film event once, I got them to sponsor a few platters of subs. If an audience shows up to a screening and knows there could be some free small food afterwards, that could be the extra enticing thing to get them to attend.

*Do not provide food before hand because then the cinema misses out on selling concessions and they will not like that.

You could also ask for money sponsorship. Agan, it should be a local business, you put their business name on the screen as the audience finds their seats and before the movie starts. In essence that screening is sponsored by that specific local business. You can sell it for only $1,000. Which would cover your hotel, food and travel for the night. Thus making that event cost you nothing out of pocket.

There will be at least one business that will sponsor in kind and one that will sponsor with money - and if $1,000 is too much for one business, then find two for $500. You just have to do the work of reaching out to them.

Products

This is probably the most important part. You need to make money so you can keep making films as your career and to get you to your next film.

Average ticket price is $11 in the US. If you aren’t in the US, look up your countries average ticket price.

Let’s say you can only sell 100 tickets per screening per city and you do only one screening per city. Let’s also say you do 3 cities per week. So 30 cities, 30 screenings, over the course of 10 weeks.

30 cities x Ticket sales = $33,000. That should be the minimum you aim for. In this can go up if you sell more tickets per screening OR if you also have more than one screening in a night.

Remember, you should try as hard as you can to get the cinemas to sponsor the event and let you have the screen for free. You should also try hard to find one local company to sponsor the screening for $1,000. That would be a total of $30,000.

You can also sell physical products. I would sell 2-3 speciality items.

1. Movie poster (autographed)

2. Bound screenplay (autographed)

3. Film slate (autographed)

Products that feel special and aligned with the film can sell very well and you can charge a premium. One of the things that makes the products special is that they should all be autographed.

A bound screenplay can be bound by a decent hardcover, or leather. You just have to ensure what you charge for it covers the costs of printing and binding the screenplay.

Let’s say you can sell 10 of each item at each city. So 300 total of each item

300 x $25 movie poster = $7,500

300 x $45 bound screenplay = $13,500

300 x $65 film slate = $19,500

Products total = $40,500

Hypothetical totals.

1. Ticket Sales = $33,000

2. Sponsorship = $30,000

3. Products = $40,500

4. TOTAL = $103,500

Growth (share the journey)

Share the journey through each city, at each screening, on social media, also try to get the audience members at each screening to also follow for more growth. Give them the account names to follow.

Gather email addresses of all the audience that attends so you can add them to your newsletter.

In your newsletter you can thank them for attending and then also point them to your website - where you can also have your products for sale. Someone may not have bought at the screening but then decides to buy later, on your website. (This increases the revenue).

When you release your film online, you can then notify your audience on your newsletter about that too. Maybe they will then want to share that with their friends and family, so you can get more views.

The best part of this newsletter with the audience you have grown, is that you know they are your audience because they were at your screening and they will be your audience for your next film.

You can update them on your next film, and use crowdfunding, equity crowdfunding, like wefunder AND also private investors because you now have an audience, AND you can go back to those sponsors too from your tour journey to see if they would be interested in sponsoring in some way on the creation of your new film!!

You can do this right now with a film you made years ago!

The bonus tip is that you can do it with a feature film that you completed one, two or even three years ago.

No one knows! 

Still take it on the road, you don’t have to wait until your next film or the film you are in production with right now. 

Bring a new life to a previous film.

Give it a new life, as my mother in law would say. 

If you made a feature, you put it out there and few people saw it then it’s the perfect opportunity to take that film on the road, give it a new life. No one will know it came out years ago.

To the audiences its brand NEW!

Beehiiv is the newsletter tool I use and I believe you should use a newsletter too, to grow and connect with your audience. A direct connection with your audience is the best way to get your work out there. Use the affiliate link below to get started.