At some point in every agent or manager’s career, we have attended a pitch festival. Then we decide to never attend again.
I don’t know how much these pitch festivals charge writers. I imagine it’s a lot of money. I’ll tell you one thing, pay an agent a quarter of what you pay these festivals and I’m sure you will get us to read your script page by page!
There are a lot of pitch festivals out there, and I have not attended all of them. I’ve attended a few in my career, and here is what is really interesting, and will probably help you writers out and probably NOT help the organizers of these festivals out. The further away you get from Hollywood to attend a pitch festival, the better agents, managers and producers you are going to be pitching to.
There are several in Los Angeles. I believe the big one is the the Fade-In pitch festival. I remember going to this when I started off as an assistant. At this pitch festival, in MY OWN OPINION you are going to be pitching to assistants, or managers who are on their own or lower level executives (**FADE IN SENT A POST BELOW TO ME TO CORRECT A PREVIOUS SENTENCE I POSTED HERE TO SAY THAT THEY ALSO HAVE HIGHER LEVEL PEOPE ATTEND AND THEY NEVER HAVE INTERNS. I WILL ACCEPT THEIR LETTER TO ME AND SAY THAT THIS MAY VERY WELL BE TRUE SINCE I DONT ATTEND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF THEIR EVENTS. ALSO, THEY ARE RIGHT WITH REGARD TO INTERNS. THIS WAS MY MISTAKE AS I THINK IT WAS ANOTHER FESTIVAL THAT MY INTERN WENT TO. A DIFFERENT FESTIVAL I WILL NOT POST ON THIS BLOG IN CASE THEY GET MAD AT ME TOO!**). Now, this is not a bad thing. Assistants really are the gate keepers in this town, and can push scripts up the ladder. All the other pitch festivals in LA, will mostly consist of assistants. The exception to this rule is the USC pitch festival and the UCLA one, but the USC pitch is the big one in Los Angeles, and the one agents and managers really pay attentino to.
So why is this? Well, I hate to break it to you writers, but when agents and managers go to these pitch festivals, it really isn’t about finding material, it’s about hanging out with other industry people. Pitch festivals that are far away, such as the Portland Film Festival and the Austin Film Festival, usually have a great list of agents, managers, producers and studio execs. The reason is because they fly us in and put us up in hotels. We go to these festivals to hang out with our buddies and go out at night in a town we aren’t familiar with… the pitches are secondary.
Here is the good news. You DO have the agent and manager’s ear while you are there! Problem is, we hear so many bad pitches that we tend to fall asleep, but if you really have a great pitch, then this is a great opportunity to have a one on one with a professional.
Bottom line. You don’t have to be in LA to pitch to an agent or manager. In fact, pitch festivals that fly in the professionals are better than the pitch festivals in town that don’t offer legitimate agents or managers any incentive to come. Do you really think we need to attend to find material? We are bombarded each day with new scripts. Go to a festival like Portland or Austin, you will meet actual agents and managers, and not our assistants.
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So. pay an agent a quarter of what it costs to go to a “pitch fest” and somebody like you will read my screenplay? Okay, it’s a deal.
Fade In is charging $275 for its Hollywood Power Pitchfest, so 1/4 of that equals $68.75–who do I write the check to and where do I send my script?
You’re going to need to correct your post. Fade In has never allowed or had “interns” at its events. We have a strict rule about this. Further, Fade In does not allow assistants to attend unless a) they are accompanied by a higher up in development or b) they are approved to attend in the absence of their boss. Lastly, your comment stating “if you attend [Fade In’s] event you will only be speaking to assistants or managers who are on their own or interns” is grossly incorrect and actually libelous. Of the 200 representatives that attend each year, we rarely if ever have assistants attend but rather Sr. VPs, Producers, Directories of Development, seasoned agents from CAA, ICM, UTA, WME & boutique agencies, studio executives & even directors. You are of course entitled to your “opinion” about out of town festivals vs. in town festivals even though you are obviously not speaking for all industry professionals & we disagree with your analogy. You are not, however, entitled to publish LIES about our event. Therefore, it would be in your best interest to correct your “mistakes” within this post.
Dear Fade In, I will correct my post sentence where I stated ““if you attend [Fade In’s] event you will only be speaking to assistants or managers who are on their own or interns” since I have not attended EVERY single pitch festival you have put on and i’m sure you have had some great people attend. I am talking from my own experience as an ASSISTANT at a major agency when I did this pitch festival with all the other ASSISTANTS at my agency. The people I spoke with were at the tables next to me, so I posted this from my own experience. But you are right, I did not speak to all the other executives at the other tables who could have been heads of departments and senior people, but I was talking to mostly the people in my own section. I am not quite sure what the rules of your organization are, but you can NOT fault me for expressing my OWN experience. As a matter of fact, I still get invited to attend your festival and I usually refer this to one of the assistants here. So what I am stating are not LIES as you say, but my own EXPERIENCE and what other agents in our circle also experience from these festivals.
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