Artist Ticket Picks: A Winter Solstice Party, Ska, Roller Derby and more!

December 9, 2013
By Brown Paper Tickets

Welcome to this week’s Artist Ticket Picks! The Artist Ticket program gives our customers a way to donate to causes that we care about.

If you’re an event producer, you can allow your ticket buyers to purchase limited-edition tickets printed with original artwork in your event settings. The ticket buyer will pay a small, additional charge of $0.25 and receive a limited edition, collectible ticket imprinted with original artwork. The current charity of our choosing will receive 100% of the additional charge. Physical tickets must be enabled on the event.

If you’re a ticket buyer, you can check to see if the limited edition ticket is available to you at the beginning of the ticket checkout process or by visiting the Artist Ticket page. You receive a small piece of collectible art and support a valuable cause just by checking the box in the Artist Ticket widget when you’re purchasing your tickets!

See a full list of events carrying the tickets on the Artist Ticket page, as well as find out more about the beneficiary for the current run of Artist Tickets.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s Artist Ticket picks:

Saturday, December 21 I The Winter Solstice Party with L’Orchestre d’Incroyable – Seattle, Washington

Assembled in the gray light of a Seattle winter’s eve by the shadowy lunatic, M. Incroyable, L’Orchestre D’Incroyable exists on the premise of arcane calculus, moonlit ceremony, copious poison potions, and the occasional sacrificial slaughter. L’Orchestre lulls you into a trance, and stirs your inner demons to the point of driving the body to wild and sensual shaking. Armed with a melange of musical weaponry (homemade stringed boxes, banjo, upright bass, theremin, cello, percussion, baritone guitar and more) Incroyable’s meticulous methods of hypnosis and musical abuse are certain to render any audience slave to its sonorous tonic.

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Artist Ticket Picks: Marlene Dietrich, Warren Beatty, Elvis and more!

December 2, 2013
By Brown Paper Tickets

Welcome to this week’s Artist Ticket Picks! The Artist Ticket program gives our customers a way to donate to causes that we care about.

See a full list of events carrying the tickets on the Artist Ticket page, as well as find out more about the beneficiary for the current run of Artist Tickets.

So, without further ado, here are this week’s Artist Ticket picks:

Friday, December 13 I The Devil Is A Woman – Seattle, Washington

The Devil Is A Woman is the last and most stylized of the Von Sternberg/Dietrich films. Stunning in bright black and white, it’s the story of Concha Perez (“The most daaangerous woman aliiiive” drones Lionel Atwill as a bitter and broken-hearted cast-off, filling in quite nicely for Von Sternberg).

Concha begins as a poorly dressed cigarette-maker with curiously impeccable make-up and hair in 1890’s-ish “Spain.” Cesar Romero, handsome as a God, plays the gay, young patriot enthralled with Concha after seeing her in perhaps the most intriguing Spanish-comb/pom-pom/mantilla combination ever enshrined on film.

The Travis Banton costumes for Miss Dietrich are over-the-top stunners, and really her hair is worth mentioning again: an ever-changing kaleidoscope of lace, Spanish combs, spit-curls and carnations. There are a lot of squawking, messy, flapping birds, so if you get bored waiting for Miss Dietrich to show up while the plot advances (an adaptation by John Dos Passos, but you’d never know it) those birds will give you something to think about.

Selected by the artist Mark Mitchell.

Commercialism or Community? New Film Suggests an Answer.

March 18, 2013
By Barb

Films typically have goals that can be measured in earned revenue and audience size, with only the most artistic endeavours throwing economic concerns to the wind in favor of critical acclaim. But very rare are the films that put at the top of the priority list “starting a movement.”

A new independent film called “Money and Life” will make its world premiere this Wednesday, March 20 in Seattle’s Independent Film Festival theater, the Cinema Uptown. “Money and Life” wants to change the world, like a viral idea or a religion; converting one mind, one life, one community at a time.

Economics is rarely thought of as sexy or entertaining — thus, a new world economy theory is rarely the subject of a film. The thing that will move people to see this movie is not exciting explosions or high drama, vicariously experienced through the actors onscreen. The driving force will be the instinctive urge to share the mental pyrotechnics created by a concept so familiar, yet exciting, that it must be discussed, shared and measured! This movie will have a shelf life of a lifetime, fuelled by word of mouth — people talking about the concept to their friends, sponsoring viewing parties, and, finally, referencing it as the turning point when they changed how they lived their life.

The message of the film? Simply that the pursuit of money should not be prioritized above creating a more fulfilling life. The film uses the economic crisis as a bridge to understanding that a lack of money is not the end of the world, it may in fact be a beautiful beginning to a new economy. One based on a gift economy, wherein if just one thousand people saw the film and committed to new courses of action and mutual support, that could start a cascade of change towards a just, resilient economy.
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Rose City Comic-Con: Portland Enters the Fold

August 29, 2012
By admin

[Pro tip: if you just want to go straight to winning tickets, scroll to the bottom of this post for instructions.]

Can you believe that before this year, Portland, Oregon was lacking a Comic-Con? From the Emerald City to New York to, of course, San Diego, Comic-Cons have been cropping up the world over. Originally a niched convention for dedicated fans, Comic-Cons have become events of national appeal and acclaim; they’re an overall celebration of what it means to be a fan. In under two weeks — September 8 and 9 — Portland gets their own.

Comic-Cons, traditionally, feature tables full of comic vendors where you can meet artists and presses (often with specials!), panels of industry greats, and incredible workshops, and the Rose City’s is no exception. We got a chance to speak with intrepid Rose City Comic-Con organizer Ron Brister about some of the geeky staples in his own backyard, comics in Portland, and taking on the incredible feat of organizing a festival while still having a day job.

Describe the Portland comix scene and why you felt you needed to bring it a Comic-Con.

The comic scene in Portland is pretty vibrant. We have many artist and writers that live in the area, Dark Horse Comics is head-quartered here, and the largest independent studio, Periscope, are all located in the metro area. Based on all that, we felt that Portland was missing something, a more mainstream convention that celebrated all things Pop Culture. The events that we had in town either were stagnant, catered to a small subset, or where narrowly focused on one subject. Plus, we travelled to the conventions up and down the west coast only to run into all the same people from Portland. It was then that we said, “Hey, why don’t we do something like this in Portland?”

Of course, there’s a wider scope of pop culture than just comics — as is the nature of the modern comic-con. Is there still an emphasis of comics themselves, or is this about a wider landscape?

Rose City Comic-Con is a comic convention at heart. With that in mind we have focused our efforts on comic artist, writers, and vendors. However, comics these days have a massive crossover into other genres such as sci-fi and fantasy. Many of our guest are not only comic folks but they are also novelists, screen writers, musicians and actors. But I think the foundation for all those other creative mediums is comics.
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Film Festival Insights: 5 ways to ensure the success of your film festival

March 28, 2012
By Rachel

Many elements must come together to make a film festival a success, from selecting the right films, to marketing to actual day-of-festival organization. Caroline Planque, a member of our outreach team, recently sat down with Ian Merkel, the director, film curator and fundraising manager of the Vancouver South African Film Festival. Ian shared his valuable insights into what organizers may do to ensure the success of their festivals. His excellent advice applies not only to film festivals, but could be used by event organizers of all types.

Here are Ian’s insights to film festival success:

Add Galas and complimentary events to your film festival.
Every festival needs to have events planned around the films. The films on their own are not enough. You need to think about doing galas, or bringing directors in, or doing Skype interviews.

Target each film to a different type of market.
Every film has its own type of audience. Yet the festival in itself has an audience you can target as well. Some of your films may be documentaries with causes. You can partner with those cause leaders to bring more attention to your festival.

Get sponsors for the galas to each film.
When you bring people in to sponsor, the word gets out because they’re telling their friends about it. You hit a larger audience when you partner with sponsors.

Film festivals need a lot of marketing, a lot of talk, a lot of promotion. You have to be in all types of media today. You have to be on twitter, you have to be on Facebook. You also need to work to get TV, radio, newspapers, and magazines talking about your festival.

Use themes to build interest in your films. Can you look at your best films and build up a theme around them? Festivals are special, it’s not just like going to the theater. Also, it’s good to promote your film festival with other festivals and collaborate with them as community partners.

Want more help organizing and promoting your film festival? Give our Event Promotions team a call at 800-838-3006 (option 5) or emailpromo@brownpapertickets.com. Totally free to you, our promotions team is standing by to hear your challenges and work to come up with smart, actionable marketing solutions.

About the Vancouver South African Film Festival:
The second edition of the festival will take place April 20-22, 2012 at the Denman Cinemas in Vancouver, Canada. All proceeds will be donated to the non-profit Education without Borders to support its educational development work in South Africa. The screenings will focus on both documentaries and feature films that reflect the complex reality of the South African society, making the scope of the festival unique and unprecedented. Attend or learn more about the festival here:http://vsaff.org/

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BPT’s Featured Venues: The New Beverly Cinema

March 9, 2011
By Jimmy Berg

Brown Paper Tickets sells tickets for some great independent movie houses around the country but one that has continuously caught our eye is the legendary New Beverly Cinema in Los Angeles, the last repertory revival theater in Los Angeles.
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