PSIFF gears up for another year
If you’re a movie fan, Thursday will be your chance to get up close and personal with your favorite stars. The Palm Springs International Film Festival is kicking off starting with it’s annual gala.
“Here’s the red carpet! Check it out!….”
These visitors from Washington state are walking by the gala set up excited for the start of the Palm Springs International Film Festival.
“This is probably my 10th or 11th festival and it’s the highlight of my year down here,” Carrie McGough, said.
A highlight that includes the chance at meeting high profile stars that are being honored.
“Really looking forward to Glenn Close and Melissa McCarthy who knock it out of the park with Can You Ever Forgive Me,” Janette Force, said.
“Who doesn’t love Bradley Cooper from A Star is Born? I’m holding out hope Lady Gaga will be here, and introduce him,” McGough said. {“url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1080617251403952129″,”author_name”:”Jeremy Chen”,”author_url”:”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ”,”html”:”&#lt;blockquote class=”twitter-tweet”&#gt;&#lt;p lang=”en” dir=”ltr”&#gt;Preparations are underway for &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PalmSprings?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PalmSprings&#lt;/a&#gt; International Film Festival. Find out how the festival is drawing business and advice on getting those coveted autographs and selfies with the stars. Full story tonight at 6 on &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/KESQ?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;@KESQ&#lt;/a&#gt;. &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/hashtag/PSIFF19?src=hash&ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;#PSIFF19&#lt;/a&#gt; &#lt;a href=”https://t.co/3H0UT4V6hc”&#gt;pic.twitter.com/3H0UT4V6hc&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/p&#gt;— Jeremy Chen (@JeremyChenKESQ) &#lt;a href=”https://twitter.com/JeremyChenKESQ/status/1080617251403952129?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw”&#gt;January 3, 2019&#lt;/a&#gt;&#lt;/blockquote&#gt;n&#lt;script async src=”https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js” charset=”utf-8″&#gt;&#lt;/script&#gt;n”,”width”:550,”height”:null,”type”:”rich”,”cache_age”:”3153600000″,”provider_name”:”Twitter”,”provider_url”:”https://twitter.com”,”version”:”1.0″} Before all the glitz and glamour happens work boots are all over the red carpet as preparations are made for all the arrivals at the convention center.
This includes our own News Channel 3 crew making sure systems are a go before we go live from the red carpet.
The PSIFF show producer says it’s all about putting the finishing touches outside.
“This is the last thing that we’ll do before tomorrow when we get over-run by press and talent and guests, but it’s a weeklong installation of creating an empty shell into an event as big as this one,” Alise Mauritzson, said.
A big event means more customers for local businesses. At Destination PSP, the owner says he’s seeing two to three times the amount of foot traffic over the two week film festival as visitors comb through official merchandise.
“The film festival gets a lot of exposure for Palm Springs. People want to take home a memory of it, so their out there shopping and it’s really one of the unique attractions we have,” Jeffery Bernstein said.
Perhaps the highlight for many fans is the interaction they get with their favorite stars. The show producer has some advice at scoring that coveted selfie or autograph.
“I would reccomend kindness and respect. No pushing or shoving, and I think…just putting yourself out there in a way that sort of gets their attention, but does so in a way that’s not pushy,” Mauritzson said.
