I know this will come as a shock to many, but I decided the combination of the cost, the time, the recovery and the timing this year, were all too prohibitive.
- First, it's a lot of money to do the whole thing. Especially since they turned the Elgin into a "premium" venue, thereby screwing pass holders. Still annoyed about this. Sure, I could've just gone to a few movies, but I'm not good at doing things half-way and it likely would've ended up consuming too much of my attention anyway. See #2
- All in, the festival takes up about 2-3 weeks of my life. Between standing in lines to pick up the selection book... and picking my films, and standing in line again to hand in my picks, then again to pick up my tickets, then again to exchange tickets because of inevitable screw ups... It takes at least a week of my life, before the films even start. Then the next 11 days are consumed, and I mean consumed, by seeing films. I'm typically out of my house for minimum 15 hours each of the 11 days of the festival. Typically out of the house before nine and rarely home before midnight... And that takes me to #3.
- It always takes me at least a week to decompress from the festival and get back onto my writing schedule. It's so exhausting and so overwhelming and between going and trying to blog about it, it takes over.
- The early September timing is often an issue. I invariably end up missing a couple of important meetings because of the festival. And both my sister's and her hubby's birthdays fall during the festival most years.... so I forget those and feel badly. But this year, my parents are celebrating their 50th wedding anniversary. (I know, crazy!) And since the party is right after the festival, there is no way I could justify going this year.
2 comments:
I'm so sorry you can't go this year, Maureen. I'll miss reading about movies coming down the pike, but I'm glad for all that time you'll have to write :)
Noooooo!
Maureen, don't you know that I live vicariously through you during TIFF?
I'm so bummed.
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