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In a worldwide effort to give a voice to the things that women hide, the things that bring them pain and joy, and to promote women’s empowerment, we are excited that you are working with us to plan a screening of "Things We Don't Talk About" in your neighborhood.
It's easy. On this page you'll find everything you need to make the screening a successful event for your community!
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Getting Started
Consider your goals and needs. Let's use the film to support them in a practical way. We suggest that you host BOTH a screening of "Things We Don't Talk About" and a Red Tent at the same time becuase by hosting a Red Tent it gives you a platform to start a Red Tent in your community and to promote your business or your skills.
Important Note: While the Red Tent is generally a woman-only space I allow men in my Red Tent during the screening because I think it's wonderful when men want to watch this film. But if we host a Red Tent activity after the screening then men should be prepared to leave so that we honor the tradition.
1. Select a location
Where will you host our screening? We suggest that you be creative! Here are some suggestions of places that we LOVE doing screenings at:
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There are many good places to do screenings. These are just suggestions. We recommend that any venue rental fees be very affordable or even free.
2. Red Tent installation
You may be asking yourself, what does Isadora mean when she says that she is bringing her Red Tent panels that can fill up to 3,600 sq. ft? Or perhasp your asking yourself, what's a Red Tent panel? How does it hang?
To view photos of each panel or what the binder rings look like click here.
A panel is just a large piece of fabric. Each panel is 15 ft wide x 13 ft tall. Isadora designed it with the size in mind so that the Red Tent could be installed in very little time. The 13ft height is deigned so that it can accomdate a common 12ft ceiling. If the ceiling is shorter, no problem. It's fabric. It just hangs in a beautiful bunch on the floor. If the ceiling is taller than 13 ft, no problem we can hang the full length of the panel and then there will just be some exposed wall near the ceiling.
Isadora'a panels can fill up to a 3,600 sq ft open space (a 60ft x 60ft room) or a space that holds around 300 people. She has 17 panels in all. 16 regular panels and 1 doorway that has an opening. And of course, the Red Tent can be smaller too. Most of Red Tent/Screenings generally use about 8 of those panels.
How does it hang?
Isadora put grommets along the top edge of all of her panels at intervals of 1 foot. So there are 15 grommets in each panel. Then we hang the Red Tent using 3 inch binder rings. We put the binder ring through the grommet and then clip or hang the ring onto things in the space like the grid for a drop ceiling, poles, wall sconces, crown molding, nails already in the space, window frames, etc.
What do I need to provide?
1 (one) ladder that will ensure that we can reach the ceiling (10 ft or 6 ft ladder is ideal)
2 or 3 helpers (including yourself) to install the Red Tent with Isadora. Please make sure that these helpers can climb ladders.
3. Pre-sale Tickets
We suggest that you do pre-sale tickets. You can do this in a few ways:
1. Use the postcards that we give you as the pre-sale tickets and collect cash or checks in exchange.
2. Create an online ticket pre-sale using one of these great sites: http://www.brownpapertickets.com/
Once you have created your pre-sale online ticket page be sure to add that info to all of your promotion & be sure to give us the link so we can help sell tickets too! |
4. Suggested Schedule
The evening schedule might look something like this:
This is assuming that the space holds under 75 people + 1 ladder and 2 helpers for set up (it does not go much quicker with more helpers).
Friday or Saturday Screening
Set up: 4pm (red tent & equipment) Doors open: 6pm Intro & Screening: 6:30-7:40pm Q&A: 7:40-8pm Bathroom break & me selling: 8-8:15pm Red Tent activities: 8:15-9:15pm (optional) Take down: 9:15-10pm |
Sunday Screening
Set up: 1pm (red tent & equipment) Doors open: 3pm Intro & Screening: 3:30-4:40pm Q&A: 4:40-5:00pm Bathroom break & me selling: 5-5:15pm Red Tent activities: 5:15-6:15pm (optional) Take down: 6:15-7pm |
5. How to Promote the Event
There are many ways to get the word out. We believe that people will feel compelled to attend an event if it feels relevant, important and timely, and if it speaks to them as an audience. At any given time there will be many possible tie-ins to women’s lives and “hooks” for particular media outlets. Because a Red Tent is a woman-only space, your primary audience will be women. While we suggest that you start by inviting your girlfriends and female family members, we also want to encourage you to consider opening the flaps of your tent a little wider.
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Let's say that you already have 10 girlfriends that you know will help. Offer these “inspired” women an opportunity to get involved. For example, maybe they can bring some food, give out some postcards, hang some of the posters, send some emails, help with set up or any number of other tasks that they are great at.
Take into account how best to reach your audiences. Not everyone uses e-mail or facebook, and not everyone hangs out at progressive coffee shops. A clear understanding of how to reach each audience segment will make you more effective, and the best strategy is a combination of the ideas listed below.
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Here are some suggestions of what has worked for other screenings:
Send an email to your friends, family, co-workers (who might be interested), or your email mailing list (business). We have created a email template that you can download. We recommend you send out these emails at least twice: two weeks before, and then a reminder a few days before our event.
Other people you might invite by email:
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Facebook Event
Create a Facebook Event & invite your facebook friends. Not sure how, here's a step-by-step plan for you. (This may have changed depending if Facebook made any recent graphical changes)
1. log into your facebook account 2. Go to your facebook page 3. Click the "More" link (currently located next to your # of friends). Scroll down to "Events" & click it 4. Click "Create Event" and follow the on-screen instructions. |
If you are needing info for your Facebook Event we suggest that you download the email template and use that same information. And feel free use any photo or drag & drop (or right click) any photo from this website for this promotion.
Be sure to enable the features that allow people to forward your event information to their friends. You can also just send a message with the event information to your friends and to groups that might be interested, including links to the “Things We Don’t Talk About”website and to our pages on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/redtentfilm and Twitter http://twitter.com/redtentmovie
Be sure to tag the film's facebook page so that we can promote the event too. Or once you have created the event, email us the website link.
Posters
Here are some suggestions of where to put up the posters that we send you.
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Postcards
Distribute postcards at events with similar themes. Be sure to send (or e-mail) flyers to cosponsoring organizations to distribute at their events. Go to local organizations that do work that relate to women and ask if you can leave flyers at the entrance or if they’ll post the poster.
Blogs
Reach out to any bloggers that you know and to bloggers who are popular with your target audience. Even a brief mention with a link to the event is helpful. Be sure to send them information to link to or embed the “Things We Don’t Talk About” trailer from www.redtentmovie.com/trailer.html onto their site for increased attendance at our screening.
Local Media
We have designed this list to be comprehensive in order to empower you to do the best event possible. We realize that some sections will not be applicable to everyone and this section on local media is a great example – depending on your objectives and your audience, you may or may not decide to pursue media coverage. That’s fine, as it’s all about how best to reach and impact your audience. But read on for some guidance for how simple media outreach can be!
If you or one of your co-sponsoring organizations has a communications department that can take the reigns on contacting press, get them involved right away. But we understand that many small groups or community organizations may have limited capacity, so we’ve put together some basic tips that can be useful to those who are new to working with local media. Before you make complicated plans about how to promote your event, spend some time thinking about who is most likely to understand and appreciate our event, and what media our target audience listens to, reads and logs on to. By targeting your core audience, you might decide that it makes more sense to focus on, say, an alternative weekly paper that already covers innovative community initiatives vs. the headline-driven daily paper that tends to focus on crime and celebrites.
Below are some basic tips for your media outreach:
Use the template press release as a guide to create your own. Ten days before the event, issue the release to a wide range of mainstream, alternative, community and specialized media. Make sure to send it to reporters covering women’s issues, the arts/entertainment, and metro sections.
Here are a number of ideas:
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Here’s who to contact:
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A couple of days prior to your event contact the people to whom you sent press materials and encourage them to attend the event.
