LETTER TO THE EDITOR / Time To Change

I love movies and KW needs and deserves a great film festival. The current film festival (FF) has struggled for several years. It has no connection with our community run Tropic Theater. From this 3 year customer’s perspective, everything that can be done wrong, FF has done.

The FF’s communications, on-line operations, ticketing, organization, “attendee badge” system, on time record, and pleas for the public to give more money are examples of bad service and inept customer relations. One notable exception is the terrific local volunteers who do their best to overcome managerial incompetence. I know we can do better.

Here are a few examples from just the first 24 hours of this year’s FF, and there are plenty from prior years. The on- line ticket purchasing process was so frustrating that calls had to be made for help and the person on the line couldn’t answer the questions. The grand opening at the San Carlos was a long line of people waiting, and waiting, unnecessarily. The slow ticketing and badge drill was a mess. Nothing was on time. One of my companions said “screw it” and left. The sound (from the film or the venue) was so bad the audience couldn’t understand the dialogue.

The clincher for me, however, was the the second day. The on-line process and the tickets both showed the date and time as: Nov. 19th @ 5 PM. But when customers arrived for the 5 PM show they were told the “actual” time for the film would be 6 PM ! Social conflicts meant many customers paid for tickets and then couldn’t see the film. In spite of FF requiring voluminous amounts of personal information in order to get tickets on-line — like email and telephone – no attempt was made to contact customers or to correct their mistakes. Most of the brochures with times and locations, which aren’t sent in advance, are illegible for anyone over age 50. This inept service is unacceptable.

I’m advocating replacing the failed FF management with a local, professional, and proven non-profit KWFF staff.

 

Roger C. Kostmayer

KW

Nov. 21, 2015

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