Text/Huang Yulu
The 11th Beijing International Film Festival not only has a star-studded red carpet, but also a scalper in the camp.
From September 17 to 30, more than 210 films were screened in 31 theaters in Beijing, Tianjin and Hebei.
Compared with the starlight swaying on the red carpet, for the majority of film fans, the concentrated screening of new and old films around the world is the real audiovisual feast.
As a result, grabbing tickets has become an annual must-have operation for movie fans, and it has also become an opportunity for scalpers to accumulate wealth.
Before the opening of the screening on September 14, newcomer director Meng Lei launched 3 friends to be his "tool people" to help him grab tickets. Classic movies and 4K restoration films such as "Red Sorghum" and "Mulholland Road" are the most popular, he calls them "golden scenes", and gives them to friends to grab to increase the probability of winning. He added a netizen when changing tickets, and this netizen arranged for more than a dozen people to help grab it.
It is not enough to rely on friends to grab tickets, the key is to personally fight. September 8 official film list announced, Meng Lei selected a good film, set a good alarm clock, in advance to look at the online ticket rush strategy, to September 14 at 12 noon, he stared at the cat's eye APP, joined a stealth competition.
He said that he could not come up to grab the middle of the golden seat: "We are grabbing some more golden games, sometimes we will try to grab the edge, the first grab to grab the edge of the position, it is easier to grab." ”
Sometimes, the reaction speed of the ticketing system is not as fast as the speed of ticket snatching.
"Imatoshi: Dream Machine" is a documentary that traces the creative career of the late Japanese animation director Imatoshi, and is also the first place to sell tickets on the first day of this exhibition, with 3843 tickets for 8 shows, 80 yuan per ticket, all sold out in 12 seconds, and the box office exceeded 300,000 yuan.
When Meng Lei grabbed the number of scenes in this movie, he locked the tickets in the blank golden area 3 times, all of which showed that they were sold out, and by the fourth time, he changed a slightly side position and finally grabbed it.
In the end, Meng Lei and his friends grabbed 9 shows together, spending nearly a thousand yuan, in order to improve the probability of seeing the movie of his choice, he specially bought two tickets for some shows, so that there were surplus movie tickets and other fans to exchange the movies they wanted to see.
It can be said that in the matter of grabbing tickets for film festivals, it is generally difficult to rely on love alone, and the belief in hand speed is often disappointed, and the elusive luck and the help of friends who sacrifice lunch time are the key to success. No matter how bad it is, you have to fight with the scalper.
Director Yang Dechang borrowed the words of the character of the movie "Yiyi" and said: "After the invention of the film, human life has been extended by at least 3 times compared with before. "And the presence of scalpers has also increased the price of movie tickets by more than 3 times."
On the other side of the network, like sharks that smell blood, scalpers who smell renminbi have already lined up. According to the report of "entertainment unicorns", some scalpers said that each one added 120 yuan to grab. Meng Lei found on idle fish that the single ticket price of the Japanese animated film "Akira", which was released in 1988 and screened at the North Film Festival, was speculated to 500 yuan, and the original price was 120 yuan. More than 4 times more.
Zhang Guorong, Mei Yanfang co-starred in the 4K repair version of "Rouge Buckle" is also "seconds empty", when the author searched for ticket transfer information on Weibo, a netizen who claimed to be able to transfer tickets asked: "What day do you want?" Is there a premium accepted? ”
On the afternoon of September 18, the "Rouge Buckle" screened at the China Film Archive was originally priced at 80 yuan, and the netizen rose to 130 yuan to trade on idle fish. The author is too expensive, the netizen said: "It's okay, before it was more than 200 (yuan)." ”
He said that he may have grabbed the experience because of the number of ticket snatches. As soon as the organizing committee announced the film list, he knew which movies would be more popular, and some people would definitely buy them, and he thought that he would watch more films than most of the people who bought tickets to see movies.
Is it because Zhang Guorong starred and his brother's fan base was strong, and "Rouge Buckle" was preempted? "I don't think it has much to do with Zhang Guorong, replaced by "Happy Events at Home", "Happy Events in the Flower Fields", "Golden Jade Full Hall", etc., are there still people who rob them?" The above netizens have their own opinions.
In the end, he did not have the patience to reply to the question, and reduced the ticket price from 130 yuan to 100 yuan: "The lowest, cheaper for you." As the festival drew to a close, he also emptied all of his Weibo content.
In the view of a movie fan, this kind of scalper who takes the initiative to reduce prices is still a scalper with "feelings", referred to as "pink cow": "He should also be a fan of the film, and then rely on scalping to earn some money to spend." Some fans revealed that during the film festival screening, scalpers have a team of snatchers, and their own machines are already in the industrial chain.
Some fans said that this year's restoration of the 4K version of "Mulholland Road" and "Social Network" and other classic old films are the hardest hit areas of scalpers, but in terms of ticketing, not all movies are cool and hot.
"Hot special sought-after, unpopular nobody." The fan said that the ticket is not good to grab, there are not many scalpers, and the film is also scored, "the polarization is more severe."
For example, the "Portrait of the Burning Woman" at the 2019 Cannes Film Festival, in this North Film Festival screening, the original price was 80 yuan, and the scalper ticket increased more than 4 times. The documentary "Peony Returns the Soul - Bai Xianyong and the Revival of Kunqu Opera", on the evening of September 30, 2021, there are always more seats.
In Meng Lei's view, the fanaticism of some fans has also fueled the momentum of scalpers. Meng Lei joined several ticket-snatching groups, some fans "lost their minds" for some hot tickets, in a group, some group friends in order to buy a movie seat, at the expense of shouting a price increase of 100 yuan, 200 yuan.
"I think it's irrational." Meng Lei said that he himself would not buy scalper tickets, and when he encountered scalpers, he would report it. "It 's [scalper] meant to be a grey area, or a zone of illegality, and it shouldn't exist."
"Worse than scalpers are liars." Meng Lei noticed that some fans complained that they bought movie tickets from other people's hands at a fair price, and when they arrived at the movie theater, they found that the QR code sent by the other party could not get the ticket, that is to say, the ticket code of this ticket was changed many times and has been taken out. In Meng Lei's view, this is worse than paying the other party without giving a ticket, cheating both money and feelings.
However, in the ticket transfer group and the Douban group of the film festival, there are still many people who sell the movie tickets at a discount due to work and other reasons. Scattered groups and groups have become the dark web, scalpers or scammers, and the right and wrong of the film festival's screening tickets have been going on for 20 years.
As early as 1998, an issue of "Film Review" mentioned that the Shanghai International Film Festival competition was disliked by ticket sellers. By this year, the American "Variety" magazine paid attention to the phenomenon that movie tickets at the Shanghai Film Festival were hotly speculated by scalpers, some movie tickets were speculated to more than 20 times the original price, and the price of individual movie tickets was as high as 550 US dollars (about 3500 yuan). The scalper problem of the North Film Festival also has a long history.
The reason why scalpers and scammers covet fanatical fans is also because the old film market is in short supply and there is nowhere to show. In 2019, due to the epidemic, the list of offline screenings of the Beijing Film Festival directly decreased from the previous two or three hundred to about 80 films, and this year, the number of films screened at the Beijing Film Festival, which was late but arrived, has increased. "Retaliatory viewing" also appeared at film festivals.
A Tianjin film fan Bella told this writer that this year's Beijing Film Festival he came to Beijing from Tianjin, watched up to 3 movies a day, stayed in Beijing for one night, and bought a total of 11 movie tickets.
He said: "Now except for a few specific cities, there are few old films in other places, and some films that need to be graded will not be released, and they can only be seen at film festivals." ”
It cost thousands of yuan to buy tickets, plus the transportation costs and accommodation costs to and from Beijing and Tianjin, bella was "not distressed": "One year is to see this time, and even if you don't go, you usually spend a lot of money in the cinema, that is, there are fewer epidemic films in the past two years." ”
In addition, at present, the ticketing system of the Beijing Film Festival and the Shanghai Film Festival does not allow refunds and exchanges. In order to resist scalpers and reduce the various troubles of second-hand ticket circulation, some fans simply act as platforms, such as weChat Mini Program "Film Festival Exchange".
The author of this small program is Tom, who calls himself a "heavy fan". Others in Shanghai, the main business code farmer, since 2005, almost a year does not land on the film festival, and even go north to Beijing, south to Taipei, to see the North Film Festival and the Golden Horse Film Festival, the domestic film festival he has to buy more than 20 tickets every year, but in the face of emergencies can not see, ticket exchange, ticket transfer, scalper and other problems make him and many fans feel very inconvenient.
So in 2018, he spent a month and a half writing this small program: "No promotion has been done, it is put into a few fan groups, and the number of visits will come up." ”
Now, the operation and maintenance of this mini program is completed by him and seven or eight volunteer teams, and the film list of large and small film festivals in China is entered every year. Fans can upload their own ticket information, but if there is a price increase, etc., it will be marked and disabled. The total number of users is about 30,000 to 50,000 people. "The more frequent use is about 10,000 people, mainly because the traffic will be relatively large during the film festival."
From Tom's experience, the difficulty of grabbing tickets for popular films has emerged with the growth of the post-80s, especially the post-90s moviegoers, and the popular films of the Golden Horse Film Festival also need to be grabbed. He also especially understands why some fans must watch old movies.
For him, the list of films at this year's North Film Festival is very "explosive": "'Mulholland Road' is a film that I dream of seeing on the big screen. In Tom's view, the audiovisual experience of the theater directly catalyzes emotion.
He said: "[Before] it was all a resource to see, and I definitely wanted to see it on the big screen, and it felt completely different." One year, I went to the film festival to watch "Eraserhead", and the feeling on the big screen was really different from watching discs. ”
Meng Lei also believes that film is the art of the screen. Some classic movies, only go to the cinema, in the atmosphere of film fans watching the movie together, the audiovisual charm of the movie will reach its peak.
At the scene of the "Mountain Festival Examination" screened on the evening of September 17, the clip of the life and death of the mother and child in the snow at the end of the film made an adult man cry bitterly in the theater.
However, problems such as ticket transfer and scalpers have also become obstacles for film festivals to watch movies.
"I think in fact, if the official does this piece well, such as opening the refund ticket, and then attaching an official refund and exchange mini program, these scalpers will not have anything, and it will also be convenient for individuals to issue tickets." Meng Lei thinks.
At present, the Busan Film Festival and the Golden Horse Film Festival have a transfer and free ticket platform built by official volunteers, and the Golden Horse Film Festival allows the refund and exchange of tickets with a handling fee.
Regarding the questions related to the ticketing of this year's Beijing Film Festival, the author called the staff of the Beijing Film Festival Screening Department, and the other party said that the organizing committee politely refused the interview request.
(Editor: Huang Yulu Proofreader: Yan Jingning)