Tuesday (5.17) 1 pm update: Between 7 and 9 am this morning I was blocked from reserving tickets for almost all screenings on Saturday, 5.21. (The Cannes system purportedly allows journos to reserve screenings four days hence.) But I tried again a few minutes ago and was able to reserve tickets for Riley Keough‘s War Pony, Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Sadness and Cristian Mingiu‘s R.M.N. — progress!
Note of concern: Yesterday I received emailed confirmation of reserved tickets (including a PDF’ed bar-code ticket) within an hour or two. No emailed confirmations of today’s tickets have arrived as of 2:45 pm.
I’m still blocked from booking tickets for George Miller‘s Three Thousand Years of Longing and two or three others films of interest. It’s still a fucked system, and for decades to come people will speak of the Great Cannes Online Ticketing Fiasco of 2022.
Earlier: The Cannes Film Festival press office has told attending journalists to log on to the online ticket request site at 7 am to order tickets for films screening four days hence. This is what I did this morning, but despite repeated efforts I couldn’t access the site, presumably because the traffic had overwhelmed the press office server.
It’s now 8:10 am and I still can’t get onto the ticket ordering site. It’s frozen, inert, defeated. How am I supposed to see Ruben Ostlund‘s Triangle of Silence? Or Cristian Mungiu‘s R.M.N.?
This is completely ridiculous — a calamity. This is a non-functioning festival in terms of one of the most essential services — allowing credentialed journos to see films.
Journalist friendo in Cannes: “It’s insane. A disaster. Totally agreed with your post yesterday — worst situation I’ve ever seen at a festival. The tech ‘revolution’ is going to be the death of all of us.”
During the first day of the 1969 Woodstock Music & Arts Fair the ticket system collapsed. The organizers had originally expected 50,000 people to attend. Around 186,000 advance tickets had been sold just before the festival began. But an avalanche of non-ticketed music fans (roughly 200,000) quickly flattened the fences and the festival was declared free and wide open. Because the producers — Michael Lang, Artie Kornfeld, Joel Rosenman and John P. Roberts — thought fast and adapted to the situation.
The Cannes Film Festival needs to terminate the online system right now. Reserved tickets will be honored, of course, but otherwise the festival needs to quickly revert to the traditional line-up system. It won’t be easy, but it’ll be semi-manageable. There’s no question that the online reservation system is a bust, and that journos who’ve travelled many thousands of miles to attend are now faced with the distinct possibility of not being able to see the most in-demand films, or at least not in a timely fashion.