#AdaTIFFmems - How we got ourselves into the Pontypool party

After I announced this blog project, my friend Jae brought up today's tale, noting that in addition to my own memories I was also looking for contributions from friends.  It so happened this story was already on my list of favourites...I once told it to the Festival Daily newspaper when they were writing profiles on certain volunteers.

Those of us who use volunteer vouchers or buy tickets without a package, we're pretty fervent about being first in line on 'single ticket day'. We make a point to line up early - VERY early.  It went from showing up at dawn, to trekking out in the middle of the night, to meeting our friends in line at midnight, to the evening before, to lunchtime the day before.  You get the idea. Because we have been lining up overnight for many years now, it's only natural a number of our stories stem from the overnight line, including this one.

One year the Festival Box Office was at Yonge & Dundas (without a doubt the sketchiest location the box office has ever been at), and so Sachin, Jae, and I were sitting in our camping chairs outside on Dundas St. in the early morning when a semi-drunk dude with a broken flip flop, who had just come from the bar, staggers up and joins us in line.

He tells us he's the producer of Bruce McDonald's film Pontypool (really, I thought he was a homeless guy at first glance).  They hadn't given him enough tickets to the screening so he had to purchase more.  There is a 4 ticket max for each patron, so he was trying to enlist our help, with the promise that he'd invite us to the film's party, which was going to be one block away at the Imperial Pub.

We weren't quite sure what to make of this questionable character, what kind of a producer walks around in broken shoes that you'd normally wear to shower with at the gym, and has a film party at the Imperial? But when the box office opened, he did start handing us wads of cash.  So we thought "ok, fine", got him his tickets, not sure if he'd make good on his promise to invite us to the party.

Well he did. We got the date and time from him, showed up to the Imperial Pub with even a few extra friends in tow, and he was at the door to let us all in.  Good party from what I recall. All just for indulging the semi-crazy looking guy and buying movie tickets for him!  Sweet deal.