City stands to enjoy a double feature of film market in 2004.
Thousands of filmmakers and buyers will descend on Santa Monica this week, inking as much as $500 million in motion picture deals.
The eight-day American Film Market, featuring more than 450 films from 70 countries, officially kicks off Wednesday. About 7,000 buyers, exhibitors and guests are expected to participate in the 18th annual event.
For City Hall, the film market typically equals between $250,000 and $300,000 in hotel bed taxes. For local merchants, the thousands of additional visitors to Santa Monica translates into untold millions of dollars in meals, sales and cab rides.
This year is a little different, for two reasons. First, the event coincides with the Academy Awards in Hollywood — prompting local merchants to work towards keeping the movie buffs in Santa Monica. Secondly, the film market will return this November, when it will be staged each year from now on.
The idea is to shift the film market so that it is on a natural cycle with some of major film festivals. For Santa Monica, it means twice the revenue this year. For local hoteliers, that means an extra 12,000 room nights sold. In other words, most, if not all, of the city’s 3,700 hotel rooms will be booked for several days straight.
“November would be a great time,” said Denise Waggoner, a sales manager for the bureau. “It’s a great time for them to come back. It’s the soft time before the holiday season starts and it’s actually the best time for their company to have this.”
At Loews Santa Monica Beach Hotel on Ocean Avenue, hundreds of laborers have beat the clock over the past 10 days, transforming the 342-room luxury hotel into offices for movie executives. With registration set to begin today, the hotel is bracing for a swarm of visitors.
“The difference is when Disney puts out a movie like ‘Finding Nemo,’ they already know what movie theaters it’s playing at in China,” said Andrea Keldsen, a manager for AFM overseeing exhibitor services.
“The difference is when Disney puts out a move, like ‘Finding Nemo,’ they already know what movie theaters it’s playing at in China.” — – ANDREA KELSDEN Manager, AFM
Keldsen and fellow AFM staffers were at Loews on Friday as workers prepped the hotel. By today, all of the hotel’s beds will be removed and placed into storage, making room for desks, telephone and fax lines, audio/visual connections, plasma TVs and DVD players.
“To do something like this in a convention hall is one thing, but to do it in a luxury hotel is a completely different feat,” said Misti Kerns, president and CEO of the Santa Monica Convention and Visitors Bureau, who called the event the biggest in the city.
The film market was launched in 1987 with just 50 members. For the first several years, it took place in Beverly Hills. But Kerns, who worked at Loews for more than seven years before taking her post at the bureau, said local hotel officials “hustled” the large piece of business on a tradeshow floor, setting it up for its premier in Santa Monica in 1991. The event is contracted here through 2006 and officials are currently working on locking up 2007.
Andrea Kelsden
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on February 23, 2004. Read the original PDF.