Demand and ticket prices soar for the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival

While the world remains cautious and wary of returning to cinemas, the SIFF struggles to keep up with rising demands from moviegoers

The demand for tickets at the 24th Shanghai International Film Festival has become so high that the management of the film festival is unable to keep up with the local audiences and viewers, who are now paying massive amounts to get hold of scalped tickets amidst the enormous rush for tickets. Taopiaopiao, the sole official online retailer for the tickets of the festival, opened at 08:00 AM local time and was crashed by the first five minutes of sales by frantic buyers crowding the platform’s app. The platform had issued a public apology for technical difficulties leading to the malfunction in the app, which gave birth to a related hashtag that was trending in the top 20 most searched terms on Weibo, China’s Twitter-like platform.

Regular moviegoers who face technical difficulties will also have to face the trouble of sky-high prices courtesy of organized scalpers – professionals who snatch spots for profitable resales and passionate movie fans who are willing to do whatever it takes to get a chance to see their favorites on the big screen. As a result of this unethical practice, the prices of these tickets have propelled upwards of 20 times their original price in secondary markets.

The festival, which is highly popular among local audiences and moviegoers around the world, eagerly wait for the limited ticket sales to go online. In 2019, the festival sold nearly 150,000 tickets within five minutes on the first day of sales. in 2020, despite the event happening just after weeks of cinemas reopening for the first time since Covid – 19, more than 100,000 tickets were sold in the first ten minutes of opening to sales.

The film festival will have a state-mandated theatre capacity that is capped at 75%. The 24th edition, scheduled from June 11 to June 20, has proved to be just as popular despite the full schedule being announced just two days before the sales began. The festival will screen more than 400 films this year, which consists of 73 world premiere screenings, 42 international premiere screenings, 89 Asian premiere screenings, and 99 Chinese premiere screenings, adding up to 303 premieres throughout the film festival.

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