Create private screenings, hidden-from-public and only accessible to a certain group of people
If there is already a public version of the screening in your event bucket, you can duplicate the public screening(s), or you can simply create a new virtual screening and build it from scratch.
Watch our Creating Virtual Screenings video!
If you would like to replicate a user experience that mirrors what your public audience experiences, where your jury/press can peruse your Virtual Catalog, you would duplicate your entire event bucket then go through Steps 2-7 to edit the settings for each screening.
For this example, we'll duplicate a screening:
1. Click the "duplicate" icon on the virtual screening's edit page
2. A copy of the screening will appear on your screen. Rename the copied screening something such as "Private Jury Screening: Film Title"
3. Change the Availability and Geographic restrictions to "None." This is optional. If you would like to keep your original availability window and geographic restrictions, you may.
4. Set Visibility to "Hidden from Public"
5. If you will be sending tickets directly to jury/press using the Box Office, scroll down to the Ticket Bucket, un-check "Public for online customer orders," and change the price to $0.
Do NOT delete the Ticket Bucket! Even a private, free screening requires a Ticket Bucket.
While $0 tickets do not incur credit card transaction fees, they will still incur a DRM Unlock Fee (assuming the virtual screening includes ingested content), issued to your organization as a deferred fee.
Read more in the Guide to Understanding the Financial Process.
If you will not be issuing tickets on behalf of jury/press using the Box Office and instead requiring that they unlock tickets themselves, leave "Public for online customer orders" selected.
As long as you have "Hidden from Public" selected (see Step 4), only people who have a direct link to the virtual watch page will be able to unlock tickets.
If you leave "Public for online customer orders" selected and want to add an extra layer of security, you may choose to select "Sales Locked" in order to require your audience to enter a code to unlock a ticket. Learn more about locking sales.
6. Don't forget to click Save Changes!
Issue Tickets to a Private Screening
If you wish to send tickets to jury/press yourself, navigate to the Box Office, and create a Box Office order for tickets to the new screening(s).
If you're creating multiple invitations to a single screening, you can use Group Sales to issue all tickets at once.
You can add custom email confirmation text in the "Additional message" field.
If you're issuing tickets to a full program of films - ie. you want to give each juror one ticket to all 10 film screenings - we recommend creating a separate Box Office order for each recipient. Use the "repeat order" function to repeat the same multi-ticket order as many times as you like. Or you can simply create an all access jury/press pass.
Click Place Order, and your recipients will receive an email confirmation with a link to their private virtual screening(s)!
Send your audience a direct link to the private screening watch page
If you will not be issuing tickets on behalf of your audience using the Box Office and instead requiring that they unlock tickets themselves, remember to leave "Public for online customer orders" selected on the virtual screening ticket bucket settings, then send each audience member a direct link to the watch page(s).
Click View next to the virtual screening, then click either Copy Public Link or View Live.
