An event billed as a star-studded affair has named some of its stars.
Officials with the Bentonville Film Festival have announced several of the celebrities who will visit the area during the inaugural event, scheduled for May 5-9. The event could attract as many as 25,000 visitors to Bentonville, organizers said.
Among those named in an announcement Friday were Robert De Niro, who will attend a screening of a documentary about his father, and Rosie O'Donnell, who will participate in a panel discussion about women who manage their own film production companies.
Arkansas native Joey Lauren Adams will attend the "Arkansas in the Biz" panel, which focuses on Arkansans working in entertainment and media. Nick Cannon, host of America's Got Talent, and news anchor and producer Soledad O'Brien were tabbed as co-hosts of the festival's closing-night awards show.
Trevor Drinkwater of festival producer ARC Entertainment said those confirmed attendees are only "a little taste" of what's to come.
ARC Entertainment and the Geena Davis Institute on Gender in Media announced the festival in early January with the directive of being a champion for women and diversity in film. The response since the announcement indicated to Drinkwater the market for such films exists.
"It's been overwhelmingly positive in Bentonville, and Hollywood and New York. It's very topical, and people are really pleased," he said.
Hundreds of films were submitted for consideration.
About 100,000 tickets will be sold for festival events, Drinkwater estimates. That works under the premise that 25,000 festival attendees will attend four events each. A portion of those tickets will be provided to visiting celebrities and corporate sponsors, of which there are many, including Wal-Mart and AMC Theaters. But many tickets will be reserved for residents as well, Drinkwater said.
"We don't want this to be an exclusive, VIP event. It's very much an inclusive event," he said.
Other details have emerged. The Bentonville Planning Commission on Tuesday approved a permit allowing a festival sponsor village to fill an area just north of the Lawrence Plaza in downtown Bentonville. Supporting documents presented to the commission show vendor load-in is proposed to begin May 1 and cleanup to end May 12.
Also planned is the closure of Northeast Third Street during the event to help pedestrian traffic. Attendance at the sponsor village is anticipated at 1,500 guests at any one time.
The free area will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. each day of the festival.
Visitors to the area can experience product demonstrations, purchase items from food trucks and hear live music.
The sponsor village and the downtown square will serve as the primary hubs for activity, Drinkwater said. Many of the festival's venues are pledged to be within walking distance of the square.
The effect on the area isn't yet known. But a study done by the Bureau of Economic and Business Research center at the University of Utah might shed some light.
The bureau annually studies the effect of the Sundance Film Festival on Park City, Utah. An estimated 45,000 attend the festival in that city of about 7,000 residents.
Although 2015 statistics aren't yet compiled, data from 2014 indicate attendees spent $63.9 million during the 10-day festival. Almost half of that spending came from lodging, with an estimate that 31 percent of the festival attendees are from Utah and the rest from elsewhere.
"It's an incredible boon to our businesses," said Linda Jager, director of communications for the Park City Chamber of Commerce. The restaurants there are always full during that time, and major festival sponsors often buy out storefronts there to host parties for special guests, Jager said.
But it does benefit the residents of the city, as well, as the festival provides discounted tickets to area residents and hosts events such as "Townie Tuesday," a free showing of a festival film.
The first Bentonville Film Festival will not be as large as Sundance, but Drinkwater said the 25,000 guest mark is substantial.
"It's puts us up there. It makes us pretty big," he said.
Many of the details of the film festival, such as the panel of jurors, the host venues, an event schedule and the names of the films, will be announced in the coming weeks.
State Desk on 03/23/2015