It’s been really interesting to read everyone’s responses to our audience survey 2013.

Thank you to everyone who took the time to respond. Your feedback will help us to improve and help us secure future funding. We thought, in case you’re interested that we’d share some of the results, so here’s a brief summary.

Just over half of respondents (53%) said Bedford Film Festival was “Good, I see real potential to develop an excellent annual event.” Which is great news. We’re also really pleased that the next most popular response (43%) was “Excellent, I can’t wait until the next one.”

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The one ‘other’ response also was fantastic.

I was really amazed. I had come to Bedford on 30th August. I came here from Poland and I was delighted and excited about BFF. My aim was to see the short films and the Polish one (‘W imię…’). I managed to do so. I am really happy:-).

Thank you. So what about the film selection? Again it appears we’re on the right track, with 55% saying the mix of variety was perfect. About 14% said they’d like more family films and 12% said they’d like more art-house, world and foreign films, so of course we will take that into consideration as we develop and plan our stand alone events and next year’s festival.

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Our venues were also a big hit. All respondents left positive comments about the Higgins but some did ask about why we did not choose other venues that have shown films in the past. The simple reason for this is that, apart from big commercial chains, there is no other venue in Bedford that is already fit-for-purpose for the high quality screenings we want to provide. We wanted a town centre venue for our first festival and the blank canvas that The Higgins and Bedford College allowed us to use meant we could be the first to bring a true ‘indie’ cinema experience to Bedford.

One thing we find particularly interesting are respondents’ current film viewing habits. 53% do go to Cineworld in Bedford, which is great for the town. The next most popular answer at 22% was that many also wait until a film comes out on DVD.

A few of the ‘other’ responses asked why we didn’t link up with Bedford Film Society. In the very early days of Bedford Film Festival (around December 2012) one of our directors, Paul Hutchinson, contacted Bedford Film Society to see if they’d like to be involved or partner up in some way. While they wished us the best of luck they said they did not feel it was right to connect with us and we respect their position. This of course was a shame but we’d still be happy to discuss connecting with them should they want to do so in the future, as we said to them when we first made contact, their ethos very much matches our own.

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And what of your favourite film? Well it’s fantastic to see the results so close when we asked which film you enjoyed the most, proving once again that our selection was hitting the mark. In joint third place was: Short Films - reel 1, Una Noche, Dead Cat, and In the name of. Joint second place went to: Wayland’s Song, Turbo, Martin Stellman and Quadrophenia, The Blueblack Hussar, and The Crash Reel.

The most enjoyed film of the weekend though was our closing night premier, screened by us three weeks before its general release, Emperor.

All in all we’re really pleased with the feedback, of course it’s great to be told where we’re getting a lot of it right but it’s also great to be advised how we can make it better for you. We promise to listen to everything you have to say, always, and we’ll continue to bring you future film provision that matches the wants and needs of Bedford perfectly.

Yours,

Paul, Richard, Stephen.