The main TIFF box office this year is the "Festival Box Office at Toronto Life Square" at Yonge & Dundas up on the third floor. The building is on the north east corner of Yonge & Dundas. The first day to pick up your pre-purchased festival pass, official film schedule and program was Tuesday August 26/08. Even though the box office was on the third floor we actually waited outside at and up Victoria street (one block E of Dundas off of Yonge). Below is the scene at 8:30am on Tuesday August 26/08.
I was anticipating the line to be re-directed upstairs to the third floor, however it was actually done outside. Good choice there as it was a nice day, and it made the process very smooth. They started delivering the goods to folks at 9am. I was about 100 or so people back in line and it only took about 25 minutes to get my package. Here they are being handed out to us happy campers, including me!
Some of my line buddies made it into this picture - I hope you guys get your picks!
Happy day! Finally - the schedule and advance order forms.
As I was one of the folks that pre-purchased a program book and went first thing to pick it up, I got one of the 'bag of goodies'. Some nice additions this year were the beer stein, coffee grounds and pizza gift certificate (of a 'surprize' amount). Old stand bys were chocolate and the much needed yellow & green highlighter. Here's a picture of the lot:
Pretty good stuff! If you want to see what last years was like, check here.
So, after getting all of the needed equipment it was all about making the film choices. I did this in record time this year selecting 40 films (in 3 hours) and then filling out the order forms (1 hour). I hmm'ed and haw'ed and ate some chick pea salad deciding on whether or not to make second choices. The decision was yes. Time it took for the second choices was a lot faster (1 hour) but filling out the selections to the same as the first time (1 hour). So all in all that was 6 hours start to finish which started with plotting in my 'must see's', then basically looking at each time slot which to fill in the blanks. I double and triple checked my selections from the time-graph on paper I created to the advance order book form. Then I re-checked each order book form to make sure that the picks met the criteria for that type of pass (i.e. no after 5:01 pm selections for daytime pass, and also that I met the exact number of total tickets with my first selections). Overall it took 6 hours, during which I 'listened' to The Bourne Identity, Stigmata and Serenity. Funny how mainstream those all are in comparison to what ended up being my first picks.
So, how that that was done it was time to make my way to the drop off location back at Yonge & Dundas. I went on Wednesday August 27/08 around 4:50pm. Headed up the second escalator to the third floor.
And look to your left to see the tucked away (but really right in front of you) location to drop off your passes. This will also be the place to eventually purchase merchandise, as a TIFF employee mentioned to me.
One note, there are lots of festival staff around (look for clipboards and headsets) the Yonge & Dundas location as of Wednesday. I saw them at all the first three escalator landings and also in front of the actual box office, pictured below, which is on the third floor and to your right as you get off the escalator.
But all I wanted that day was to hand in my selections. Which I did - into Box 10. There it is in the box:
Fingers crossed that Box 10 is on or near the beginning of the processing. A new thing they added this year was that donors of a certain level get their orders processed first. They had boxes for them as well, but so far they didn't look very full.
Remember to be part of the advance lottery your selections are due by Friday August 29/08 at 1pm at the Yonge & Dundas locations.
Pick up of orders begins Monday Sept 1/08 (yes, that is Labour Day) at 10am at the Yonge & Dundas location. This is by far the longest line I've encountered at TIFF. They email you when your packages have been processed - so make sure you check that to see how your selections turned out. If you got all your picks I'd highly recommended picking up your tickets at another time to save waiting in line.
Want to know more?
I vlogged about the pick up process here.
My first film selections are noted here.
Unsure how to fill our your order forms or how the advance lottery works? Check out this fantastic post over at TIFF Talk where it is explained in detail, with pictures!
As always, check the official TIFF'08 site for all information on policy & procedures.
The Toronto International Film Festival 2008 runs from September 4-13/08 in Toronto, Ontario, Canada.
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