About 15,000 to 20,000 people from all over the country and world will visit mid-Missouri next month for the 14th annual True/False Film Fest. Megan McConachie with the Columbia Convention and Visitors Bureau tells Missourinet the event includes more than 30 non-fiction films, music, discussions and retail.
Popular True/False Film Fest has $2 million impact on mid-Missouri community
“The entire (downtown) district gets into the True/False spirit,” says McConachie. “It’s almost like Columbia on steroids. It’s really a concentrated weekend of some of the best of what Columbia has to offer and the entire city feels very different that weekend.”
Some of the documentaries will be fresh off of different festivals, including the famous Sundance Film Festival in Utah.
McConachie says that many of Columbia’s 3,800 hotel rooms are filled during the event.
“We commissioned an economic impact study for the 2016 True/False Film Fest,” says McConachie. “The expenditures for lodging, food and beverage, transportation, shopping, entertainment. The estimated economic impact of the fest was over $2 million for Columbia. That’s very significant over the course of just a four day festival.”
The True/False organization sold about 4,200 tickets during the festival’s first year in 2004. Last year, it sold roughly 49,500 tickets.
“It has definitely increased over 1,000% since they first began the festival,” says McConachie.
Many people have multiple tickets to attend several screenings throughout the festival. McConachie suggests reserving passes in advance by going to truefalse.org. The event is March 2-5 in downtown Columbia.
