Attendance Was Up

The numbers are in for the Hamptons International Film Festival, which ran from Oct. 16 to Oct. 21. This year's overall attendance - a figure that represents each time a person presented a ticket or pass to enter a festival event - topped 17,600, the organizers said. More than 61 percent of the seats at the East Hampton Cinema were filled throughout the festival, and opening and closing nights were completely sold out. The house was more than 80 percent full on Saturday. All told, attendance was approximately 17 percent higher than last year.

Organizers had said earlier that ticket sales were up over last year. They were right: Specifically, individual ticket sales rose from 9,025 to 9,545, a 6-percent increase. The overall take in ticket sales was up $20,000, or 11 percent, over the previous year's take.

One hundred and eighteen representatives of the film industry attended this year, according to the festival organizers' records. That number is three times last year's.

Judging by the number of press passes issued this year, some 140 publications and TV shows were represented this year, as opposed to 87 last year.

Corporate sponsorship was up 10 percent.

As reported earlier, there were more films this year: 45 narrative features, 14 documentaries, 38 short films, 3 archival ones, and 10 student ones, as opposed to 41, 9, 28, 3, and 10 last year. Thirty-two films made their American or world premieres at the festival, as did 17 shorts.