Interning with Hands-On Experience: FilmFestDC

By Mac Bassett and Kaylea Tolchin

Building up to the festival and throughout its duration, the REQ intern team was able to manage this full client project on their own successfully with the full REQ team offering mentorship, insight and advice throughout the process. The intern team serves as the main point of contact for this client while gaining experience in creating and implementing social media strategy, running bi-weekly progress meetings and managing online advertising initiatives.

This year’s festival also afforded growth opportunities, one of them being the ability to bring groups of people together in a virtual setting for their own private screening of various films. Our intern team was instrumental in pulling this off and did the legwork to ensure that the festival had an event hosting platform that would meet its needs.

Both the REQ and FilmFest DC teams anticipated the potential for low community and audience engagement as a result of the shift online. We were thrilled to see our efforts pay dividends. With more than 6,000 tickets sold, engagement with ticket holders was high and they interacted positively with boosted and organic social media content.

“Going virtual was a challenge that the REQ team helped us turn into an opportunity. With their support, we were able to expand our presence on social media to a new level, attract new audiences, and grow our event,” said Tony Gittens, FilmFestDC, on the 2020 Private Screening

While new marketing challenges presented themselves this year, the REQ team was fortunate to have been able to continue this unique partnership and give our intern team the real-time and hands-on experience that will serve us well as we develop our careers.

Provided by REQ, a Capitol Communicator sponsor.