Q&A: Tropfest founder John Polson on how the short film festival can be saved
The past four months have been the most challenging ever for short film festival Tropfest, which was cancelled due to a lack of funding and then saved by a sponsor. In this Q&A Tropfest founder John Polson talks about his hopes for the future of the festival, potential legal action, and how the cancellation led to positive changes within the organisation.
You launched a bid to crowd-fund money to help rescue the festival in January, which fell well short. Why do you think you did not raise the required amount through crowd-funding?
“Speaking honestly, the Pozible campaign was put together hastily at a time when we were (understandably) very distracted with trying to rebound from November’s disaster and stage the February event.
“We received some criticism on Pozible early on which, once I saw it, I actually agreed with. I think the idea of spending half of the potential $100K raised on a ‘strategic review’ was a mistake in hindsight – and thankfully no longer necessary with EY’s support. [Over the weekend auditors, EY, announced a deal to help Tropfest find a new business model].
Paying the suppliers would be a good start to rebuilding the event
The suppliers will never see a cent. That ‘s the nature of the beast
Forget the expensive screen. On the night, live stream the films to the iphones of people in the crowd, cause that’s about the size the actual screen appears to most trop goers. Just have speakers for good sound.