Thursday, July 02, 2015

TIFF 2015 Pricing and Dates

Dates and pricing for the 2015 Toronto International Film Festival are out.

Important dates include:

  • July 15: Ticket packages go on sale to TIFF Members
  • July 22: Ticket packages go on sale to Visa cardholders (for both Members and Non-members)
  • July 29: Ticket packages go on sale to everyone for all payment methods
  • August 24: My Choice package holders get e-mail with their timeslot for selecting films online
  • August 25: Official film schedule is published and the Festival Box Office opens
  • August 27: Patrons Circle Members can purchase individual tickets
  • August 30: Patrons Circle, Benefactor, and Ambassador Members make My Choice Flex Package selections
  • August 31: Contributor Members make My Choice Flex Package selections
  • September 1: Non-members make My Choice Flex Package selections
  • September 4: 7:00 PM ET deadline for submitting My Choice Flex Package selections (for Members and Non-members)
  • September 6: Individual tickets go on sale
  • September 7: 
    • Members can pick up Flex Pack selections and exchange tickets
    • 9:00 AM ET Contributor Members and up can make Back-Half and Daytime Pack selections
    • 12:00 PM ET Individual/Dual Members and up can make Back-Half and Daytime Pack selections
  • September 8: 
    • Non-members can pick up Flex Pack selections and exchange tickets
    • Non-members can make Back-Half and Daytime Pack selections
  • September 10 - 20: TIFF 2015!
Individual tickets for Regular screenings are $25 for adults, $18 for 25 and under, $21 for 65 and older, and $20 for rush. For Premium screenings, prices are $48 for adults, $30 for 25 and under, $40 for 65 and older, and $40 for rush.

Prices include taxes but not service fees.

My Choice packages (where you select the films you want to see):
  • Regular Flex Pack
    • 10 tickets for $200
    • purchase in increments of 10, up to 100
    • note: unlike previous years, there is no graduated pricing at higher levels, so 100 tickets is $2,000, which is about a 10% increase over 2014
  • Premium Flex Pack
    • 6 Premium tickets for $395
  • Back-Half Pack
    • for screenings between Sept 15 and Sept 20
    • 6 tickets for $75
    • 12 tickets for $150
  • Daytime Pack
    • for screenings before 5:00 PM
    • 20 tickets for $250
    • 40 tickets for $500
TIFF Choice packages (where the festival selects films for you):
  • Premium Sampler
    • 3 for $155 ($120 for youths and seniors)
  • The Buzz List
    • 5 for $1,500 (no youth or senior discounts)
  • Daytime Sampler
    • 5 for $96 ($80 for youths and seniors)
    • films are screen before 5 PM
  • Evening and Weekend Sampler
    • 5 for $110 ($95 for youths and seniors)
    • films screen after 5 PM or anytime on weekends
  • Midnight Madness
    • 10 for $185 ($120 for youths and seniors)
  • Wavelengths
    • 7 for $100 ($85 for youths and seniors)
  • Closing Night Gala
    • $205 (no youth or senior discounts)
More information is available on the festival website:


21 comments:

Thanks for this information; you always seem to explain it more clearly than on TIFF's own web pages. One thing to note, the dates you've listed for "My Choice selections" (Aug 30/31 for the elite, or a random time within Sept 1,2,3,4 for the non-elite), those dates apply to Flex Packs only. Purchasers of Daytime and Back Half packages won't be able to select their screenings until September 7 for members, September 8 for non-members. By that time many screenings will be off sale, because individual tickets will have been available to the public on September 6.

Hi. I agree your blog is very clear. I have looked everywhere and cannot see a price for the Program book except the $120 for out of town shipping. Do you know how much it is if you buy it at the TIFF Box Office?

On the TIFF site right now (purchases only open to members at the moment), the programme book is listed for $45.20.

This morning was a nightmare to purchase packages online. After logging on at 10 am and then refreshing but not being able to check out anything, I called TIFF directly and after trying for about 15 minutes before I could even get something other than a busy signal, I was then on hold for over another hour. I managed to get what I wanted, but I wasted over 2 hours.

Someone needs to fire the company that set up this web program. It may be fixed by now, but I know there were people looking to purchase the 12 pack premium and even had it in their cart, but could not check it out, and so it eventually sold out.

TIFF knows how many members it has and should have planned accordingly.

These stories make me glad I went the Patron route this year.

I am a complete TIFF newbie, and I'm hoping I can get a bit of guidance - I would like to go to the screening of The Martian. How likely is it that any tickets will be left when individual tickets go onsale to the public? IF I need to purchase a my choice flex pack, which package will offer me the option to select The Martian as one of the films. I haven't been able to find any information that lets me know what my best options are.

The Martian is part of the Gala programme. This means many of its screenings will be marked as Premium; to get a Premium screening, you either need to buy a Premium Flex Package (which is sold out), or buy an individual ticket. However, usually even Gala films have at least one non-Premium screening (for example, last year, Wild had two non-premium screenings, and The Judge had one non-premium screening), although that's not a guarantee. Those non-Premium screenings can be purchased with a My Choice Flex package or an individual ticket.

You have a couple of choices here. Your best bet for getting a ticket would be to get a My Choice flex package. However, there are two downsides here. One, you have to buy a minimum of 10 tickets, which is $200. Plus, since you're a TIFF newbie, I'm assuming you're not a TIFF Member. This means you will get a later selection time to go online to pick your films for the package, and it's likely The Martian will already be sold out.

The other option is to try and get tickets when individual tickets go on sale. This is kind of a crapshoot most years, since the website usually goes down or backs up during this period, so you may or may not get in when sales start. If you don't get in first thing, the film will probably be sold out.

Personally, if I were you, I'd try for individual ticket sales, but I wouldn't get my hopes up.

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My friend backed out last minute, and I'm stuck with a bunch of tickets I won't need.
What do you recommend is the best way to get rid of them? Find a trade site like yours, or bite the bullet and try to sell to people in the rush line?
I just don't want to lose my money.

What's your selection time? If you have an earlier slot, you could try to get tickets for more popular screenings, as those would be easier to sell off (whether on a site or more likely the rush line), although you'd have to guess at what might be popular (e.g. non-premium screenings for Gala films). You could also take requests for specific screenings from people who have later selection times and want a particular film, although you're trusting they'll follow through on the purchase.

Otherwise you could just not make selections and get vouchers, although I don't know if there's any real market for that (other than I think there might be slight discount from individual ticket prices if you were to use a voucher from a package which would have a lower per-ticket cost).

I'd guess probably the best option would be to guess at what's going to be popular, get those screenings, try to trade on a site, and if that falls through, you still have the rush line. Don't think there's any other option I can think of since the fest doesn't refund (especially on part of a package).


It's on the 1st. I'll just have to guess what would be popular, as I really have no idea how vouchers work.
Thanks a lot. this was really helpful

No problem.

As far as vouchers go, if you don't use up all your selections in your package, when you go to pick up your tickets, TIFF will give you vouchers for any unused selections. You can use those vouchers to purchase individual tickets for screenings. Don't believe there's any restriction on use of those vouchers other than probably those that apply to the package itself (e.g. probably can't use a voucher from a non-premium package to get a premium screening, or a daytime pack voucher for an evening film, etc.).

oh really? thanks. that might be an option to explore.

As I recall from previous years, the Festival strongly discourages private sales of the vouchers. In principle it's only the original purchaser of the package who is allowed to exchange the voucher for a ticket. By contrast, Festival staff/volunteers don't mind at all if you want to sell an extra ticket to someone in the rush line for that screening, as long as you are not asking for more than face value. At least that was my experience, a couple of years ago.

Nice to see this blog is up and running still :) Actually, I think official TIFF policy is no resales in general - one time, I had staff/volunteers stop me from selling a ticket at face value. It was...2011? Quite a while ago and I think that's the only time I've seen it happen but something to consider.

Wow. Yeah i just looked over their Terms again, and yes resale isn't allowed.
Thanks for letting me know.

It says that tickets go on sale at 9am, September 6th (but that you should get on-line at 7am to get into the "waiting room". Is that 7am in CANADA? I live in California, so want to make sure I'm online at the right time. Thanks!

Yes, that's 7:00 AM Eastern time. Where did you see the advice to get in early? In past years, the whole waiting room concept was a bit flexible in that in practice it wasn't necessarily first-come-first-serve, people would get admitted in a bit randomly. Having said that, they usually make tech changes every year, so it would be interesting if they are now properly enforcing the order in which people arrive.

I read it on some helpful hints from "The Roaming Life" blog "Tiff-tips for getting tickets. This is my first year purchasing a ticket, so hopefully that advice is correct, as that means I need to be online at 4am ;-)

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Travelzoo.ca has a 50% discount for TIFF tickets. You can either get 2 tickets to a film for $25 or choose 1 ticket to two different movies for $25.

My experiences at the Toronto International Film Festival. Note this blog is not affiliated with the Toronto International Film Festival Group or the festival itself.
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