My experience at HotDocs has been largely easy and fun, so imagine my surprise when yesterday my warm fuzzy feelings were chilled on line for tickets and a ridiculous system of distribution. Not just any tickets: industry tickets to the Herzog Outstanding Achievement special program that evening. Sure, everyone wants to be there, so we knew to get to the box office early in the day to grab a ticket. Well, the temperture had dropped about 10-15 degrees so it was a very chilly morning but we all waited outside like teenagers for a rock concert. The box office was slated to open at 12:00 while a Herzog film that I wanted to see started at that time. How to do both? I thought I had it figured out.

Sadly, I was mistaken. After the box office opened at 12:00, the 2 box office clerks could only manage to process one person at a time from the line. While we weren’t too far back, it took 30 minutes to get a ticket. I ran across the street to the screening but wasn’t allowed in. I decided to be thankful for the opportunity to take a deep breath, go get warm at Starbucks and do some reading while I waited for the incomparable Doug Block who had kindly saved me a seat at the screening that I was unable to fill. The day was rescued as we wound up having a lovely lunch with lots of film blog talk. More on the Herzog evening later…