Sundance Festival, America’s largest independent film festival, draws hundreds of thousands of attendees from across the globe every year. Due to popularity, festival goers were present at the venue hours in advance in the hope to secure a spot on the waitlist, interrupting lines for other screenings. Sundance needed an electronic solution that not only addressed the growing waitlist issues but also provided an intelligent algorithm that would reward the biggest fans.

We created a custom and intelligent eWaitlist system for Sundance. Two hours before showtime, fan could join the waitlist online securing an ewaitlist number within 15 seconds. In case fans got tired of waiting, they could choose to opt-out and go for a different screening within the same time range.

The eWaitlist system allowed thousands of attendees to simultaneously and securely register for waitlisted films without having to attend the venue. We have been Sundance Festival’s technology vendor of choice since 2014 and plan to incorporate advanced technology such as machine learning in future iterations of the eWaitlist system.