British Film Institute deploys Codegate Mobility Solution to capture delegate information

The British Film Institute (BFI) has deployed Codegates Delegate Registration and Tracking mobility software to ensure that it accurately captures data concerning the 2500 accredited delegates attending its British Film Festivals. The BFI needed to upgrade its existing paper based data capture processes to deliver the required market intelligence around the delegates, who come from the international film industry and include press and filmmakers, to the BFIs public funders and stakeholders.
 
Codegates solution accesses the BFIs Festival management database and prints delegate name badges that include an all important individual barcode which corresponds to the delegates unique reference number.  As each delegate enters a specific screening or one of the delegate event programmes, his or her badge is scanned by a Unitech HT630 mobile computer, also supplied by Codegate, to capture the desired delegate data.
 
Codegates mobility solution now allows us to quickly and easily monitor which members of the press attend which press screenings and which delegates view industry screenings, enabling us to report interest to film sales agents who are looking for distribution deals, explained Helen de Witt, British Film Institute Festivals Producer.  The delegate event programme, which runs during our Festivals, receives funding from Film London and Skillset.  We have particular reporting functions against this funding and we are now able to more efficiently provide the necessary demographic data relating to participating delegates.
 
Additionally, the BFI is able to monitor which members of the press attend individual press conferences and importantly, those delegates who make use of the dedicated delegate centre. Codegates Delegate Registration and Tracking solution was successfully implemented during The Times BFI 53rd London Film Festival which took place last October and, is being deployed again during the 24th BFI London Lesbian and Gay Film Festival which started on 17th March and runs until the end of the month.
 
The BFI spoke to a number of web-based combined database and accreditation system providers who operate festivals in Europe and North America.  But, on deciding not to entirely replace its existing Festival management systems, deployed Codegates solution as its integration capability allows the development of bespoke add-ons that improve registration and tracking efficiencies, at the same time as working with the BFIs legacy processes.
 
The beauty of the Codegate software is that we are able to work closely with Codegates Technical Director to develop the additional features and functionality that we require.  This has enabled us to access delegate data to more efficiently meet our reporting objectives, added Emilie Arnold, Industry Office Co-ordinator for the BFI London Film Festival.  Importantly, these reports are now more accurate and less labour intensive as several of our manual processes have been eliminated.
 
We have found the Codegate team extremely helpful and very responsive to our individual registration and tracking requirements, concluded de Witt.  The company has a very practical approach which has enabled it to continually meet the agreed implementation and development timeframes.