Annual Report 2019-2020

About our audiences

IFFR maintains a close relationship with its various audiences, both online and through events and festival editions.

This active engagement is evidenced by the increase of audience numbers at IFFR 2020, which added up to 340,000 visits and 2,705 attending film professionals. IFFR is continuously developing its connections with different types of visitors, ranging from people who are introduced to cinema for the first time (via education efforts) to long-standing cinephiles (including 2,441 Tiger Members), and from local to national and international. Differentiating between these demographics enables the festival to provide the best festival experience to all audiences. Using its various online channels in different ways, the festival accommodates different user experiences for each group.

The 49th edition also rounded-off the 4th chapter of our festival campaign that started with the 'planet' in 2017, the 'humans' in 2018 and the 'feel' in 2019.

Online efforts proved successful. The release of the full film programme on 18 December 2019 (earlier than in previous years) lead to a sharp increase in users visiting the film pages on IFFR.com, resulting in a growth of nearly 50%. IFFR also improved its digital services; users rated the IFFR App 8 out of 10 and downloads increased by 42%.

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IFFR Film Night © Jan de Groen

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The festival’s flagship print publication for Dutch audiences is the IFFR Programma Bijlage, which has a complete programme overview and was inserted in daily national newspaper de Volkskrant, an additional 70,000 copies were distributed by IFFR, bringing the total amount to 300,000 copies. IFFR Pro guests received a dedicated industry-oriented publication, the Pro Programme. IFFR also issued a print special detailing its Art Directions programme in collaboration with weekly magazine De Groene Amsterdammer. IFFR Daily, the festival’s daily online publication, reached audiences in large numbers and featured content by in-house editors as well as editorials by de Volkskrant and podcasts by our partners VPRO and Little White Lies.

In 2020, IFFR made strides in data-driven audience research. Partnering with PwC and Blauw Research, the festival attains invaluable insights through data analysis and explores data-driven strategies in the build-up towards the 50th edition. Visitors of the 49th edition have rated the festival a 8.4 out of 10. The Net Promoter Score, reflecting the share of people likely to actively recommend the festival to others, increased from 54 to 65 (out of 100).

IFFR also kept in touch with audiences outside the festival period. Find an overview of our year-round efforts here.