The Sundance Institute is widely known for their annual film festival, which just took place in-person for the first time a few years ago in Park City, Utah. The event was a great success, and perennially showcases independent artists and their innovative films. Before the big event, John Wayne, Splash’s Head of Community and Customer Marketing, sat down with two key members of the Sundance team – Associate Director of Events, Margaret Bedikian and Chief Communications Officer, Tammie Rosen – to talk about all things Splash and events at the Institute.
Founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, the Sundance Institute is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support, develop, and inspire independent film and artists. The Sundance Institute hosts multiple public programs as well as the annual Sundance Film Festival that connects up and coming independent films with global audiences.
Any cinephile knows that great motion pictures premiere during the Sundance Film Festival each year. Movies like Little Miss Sunshine, The Blair Witch Project, and Get Out all had their debut at the festival, and then went on to have great box office success.
But there is much more to Sundance than just their annual festival, Margaret Bedikian, Associate Director of Events explains:
“The institute itself was founded in 1981 by Robert Redford, with a mission to provide and preserve the space for artists – across storytelling media – to create and thrive. Beyond the festival, we have our signature labs and mentorship programs which are dedicated to film innovation and developing new work, and those take place throughout the year both in the United States and internationally. We have additional programs that help connect audiences, ignite new ideas, discover original voices, and build communities dedicated to independent storytelling.”
Sundance is no one-trick pony. The Institute has lots of different event types that they need to produce each year for their artists – including film screenings, artist conversations, fundraisers (Sundance is a nonprofit organization), stewardship events, educational and information sessions, receptions, networking events, and many, many others. Phew, that’s a lot of events!
Normally, Splash customer stories center around what the challenges were before Splash was implemented, and how Splash has made those problems a thing of the past.
But, in the case of Sundance – a longtime Splash customer since 2014 – there aren’t any members of their current team who’ve been there long enough to even remember a time before Splash. While we at Splash love a good ‘before’ story, Margaret mused that “it is a good thing that we've had that long of a relationship!” and we agree.
So, instead of dwelling on past woes, we talked about how Splash is benefitting Sundance in the here and now.
Margaret discussed some of her favorite aspects of Splash, saying:
“One of the most appealing things about Splash is its invitation capabilities. For us, the user experience is really important, and Splash makes it easy for invitees and attendees to navigate. We also like that it's customizable for all of the different types of events that we have, and that it easily integrates with other platforms that we use, like our email automation software.”
Bottom line? Splash is just easy to use. Not only from the perspective of Sundance’s users and event attendees, but also for their internal marketing and events teams. Margaret explained, “For our marketing team, Splash has been so great because when you edit settings, those edits are automatically made across multiple touch points – like on the event’s page and in emails. So, it saves time in editing since we only have to do things in one place.”
The check-in feature has also been “very handy” for Margaret’s team, since they are now able to sync across all of their check-in stations, iPads, and devices. With Splash, Sundance can easily get a real time count who's present at their events.
So, what’s next for the famous film festival producer? While Sundance is excited for a return to in-person events this year, they’re also looking to leverage what they’ve learned in producing wholly online and hybrid events. Tammie Rosen, Chief Communications Officer, talked about how there was still a need to accommodate festival attendees who aren’t able to make it in person because “in some instances, people aren't able to take a week off and come to Park City. But, they might have a day. Or they might have two days. And so, for us to be able to bring the films to them, and make the program accessible to a community that is hungry to support filmmakers and discover them at the early stage of their career – that is what we’re all about."
