Minetor & Company promotes the High Falls Film Festival

What turned the High Falls Film Festival in Rochester, NY, into a hub of excitement and tourist activity in October 2002 and November 2003?

Minetor & Company provided the public relations services that focused the community spotlight on the five-day festival of films created by women.

Randi Minetor became an adjunct staff member to the High Falls Film Festival, working closely with local and regional media for months preceding the festival and providing the detailed information reporters needed to help create excitement about the films, the stars and the events that made the Festival sparkle.

An opening night news conference coordinated so that the ribbon cutting could run live on the 6:00 news…a news conference featuring actress Candice Bergen that drew every major media outlet in the greater Rochester area, even though it was the day after a hotly contested local election… editorial leadership of the 48-page festival program…media relations that generated millions of impressions throughout upstate New York…a bright news story that broke on the AP wire and got pick-up in papers from San Rafael, California to Edinborough, Scotland. These were just some of the highlights of two years of festival communications activity.

The result: Attendance doubled at the 2002 Festival over the previous year, with six sell-out film screenings and capacity crowds at a dozen other films and events. In 2003, the festival sold out eight screenings and enjoyed a 17% increase in revenue over 2002, ending the festival in the black.

See the festival media report (PDF).