REVIVE THE DARK: FAQs about sponsorship (Season 1)

We’ve started this list of FAQs to help exhibitors prepare their pitches for sponsorship as part of our Revive The Dark campaign. Get in touch if you still need more info!

By RADIANT CIRCUS // Twitter @radiantcircus / Instagram @radiantcircus

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  • What if we already have other funding? We’re running this scheme using an “honesty box” principle. If you already have other funding for your project *and* our money won’t make much difference to your chance of success, then please allow other exhibitors to apply who might need it more. If £200 will make a real difference to your screening event, please go right ahead and pitch! Our logo will sit alongside those other fancy funders just fine 😉
  • What if our event is part of a wider programme? That’s absolutely fine. We’re offering funding for a “one-off” or single screen event just so we know where we can focus our promotional support (and we recognise that the amounts we’re offering can only go so far…). However, there is no problem if your sponsored event is nested within a season, festival or other programme. We’ll work with you to get everything right.
  • What if we haven’t (yet!) got a date agreed with our venue? We understand finalising programming details will be difficult as venues are reopening after shutdown. Just tell us where you are in the planning process when you pitch and we can work it out together if there are uncertainties. We do however have limited resources so we apologise in advance if we are unable to hold support for provisional events (this is likely to be the case if you haven’t secured a venue or licensing yet). In such instances, we would hope to make another round of offers in the near future (subject to getting more subscribers – see below!).
  • Why isn’t there a deadline? Good question… We literally had no idea when this project would be most useful to exhibitors (given the enduring uncertainty of COVID-19) but wanted to get the offer out as soon as possible… This is a learning experience for us and we want to talk to exhibitors about how best to support your work in the future. What we do know is we want our sponsorship schemes to be different to mainstream grant funders so we can fill in gaps, respond to new opportunities, and generally be as flexible as we can be… just get your pitch in soon! And we’ll work everything out after that.
  • Will there be another round? We really hope so… We need everyone’s help to raise awareness of our Revive The Dark campaign and strongly encourage our supporters to start monthly subscriptions if they haven’t already done so. Quite simply, the more subscribers we have, the more support we can give. The model we have chosen contributes 40% of every monthly sub to our exhibitor fund. That means – assuming we meet our upper membership targets – we will be contributing £15-20k to London’s alternative cinema sector each year… which could make a serious difference.
  • Will you still be covering other events? Yes! We still want to be the most comprehensive indie event listings service in London, and we will try to cover as many other events as we can. Remember to submit your events using this form for inclusion in our listings (or email full details of seasons & festivals). We’re also very open to receiving guest posts (like this one or this one) which really helps us and could really help you… just email your ideas for guest content and we’ll take it from there.

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*THE SMALL PRINT: Opinions author’s own. // As accurate as we could make it. Apologies for any errors. Updates & corrections will be made to the online version only. // Event dates/times/formats are subject to change by the venue/organiser. Events may already be sold out at the time of posting, so please click quickly. // We try to list as many original format screenings as we can (8 to 70MM), but sometimes formats change due to age of the print, availability, logistics etc, so please check ahead with your venue if the format is your thing. // All images are used in the spirit of fair use for reporting & review – no ownership is implied or intended / unless otherwise credited to RADIANT CIRCUS as the original rights holder. We will remove any images immediately upon request – just get in touch. // We don’t filter our listings by age/certification: all readers & subscribers should therefore be 18+. // Finally, we always try to follow The Carny Code by “not screwing up anyone else’s game”, but everyone can make mistakes… If something does go wrong, we will always do our best to put it right. //.