WIFF drive-in movie event sees 4K moviegoers
16-day event took place at city's waterfront
The first ever WIFF Under the Stars just wrapped up.
The drive-in movie event at Riverfront Festival Plaza ran for 16 days.
Organizers came up with the drive in movie idea after they had to cancel the Windsor International Film Festival in June.
WIFF's executive director Vincent Georgie says more than 4,000 people showed up, and many of them thanked staff for putting on a festival during the pandemic.
"it ended up being a lot of fun and very rewarding. I mean, obviously, it had challenges — making sure everyone was able to stay safe and planning it with a lot of uncertainty in the months leading up to the event," he said.
"But it was really rewarding because our audience was, I think, somewhere between grateful just to have a great event happen in Windsor when so many things were cancelled."
Georgie said for many, going to a drive-in movie is a "novelty," especially for younger viewers.
The success of this event has WIFF officials thinking about doing something similar in future.
"The audience will tell you what they like and don't like and this is clearly a classic case of the audience loving it," said Georgie. "We've just got to make sure we can pull off the major festival in the same way."
Georgie said it takes a year to plan WIFF, which normally happens in November. To pull off a bigger festival in a drive-in style may come with challenges, he added.
"But I know we definitely have a lot of appetite around the table to see what we can do to bring the drive-in back. I want to see what that would look like."