FORMAT is one of the UK's leading contemporary photography and media festivals. The festival celebrates the wealth of contemporary practice in international photography and shows an incredible range of new work alongside the best known practitioners of the world.
FORMAT 09 explores the theme of PHOTOCINEMA featuring the work of artists who extend the 'still' image in time through the use of photo-narrative sequencing, directed or documentary photography and moving image from single still to feature film. These include: David Lynch, Hannah Starkey, Muge, Zhang Xiao, Gregory Crewdson, William Eggleston, Cindy Sherman, Jonas Mekas, Eric Baudelaire, Simon Roberts, Mark Read, Nichola Dove, Bethany Murray, Magnum Cinema, Pang Xuan, Wim Wenders, Steve Harries and Mel Bles + many more.
Following a pitch, Katapult were appointed to develop the marketing campaign for Format09, including the festival website. Katapult developed a cinema inspired brand style to showcase the festival – a distinctive yet subtle style that puts the work of the artists & contributors at the heart of the campaign and drives awareness, interest, participation and attendance. Katapult also developed the FORMAT09 website using Kudu, Katapult's Content Management System, including Your PHOTOCINEMA, an application that integrates with Flickr to present a constantly evolving gallery and online exhibition featuring the work of artists and photographers from around the world.
The integrated Flickr application enabled people from all over the world to participate by submitting their own photography either through Flickr or directly to the site with ease. The success is proven by the statistics, with Mob Format -YOUR PHOTOCINEMA getting 2342 participants compared to just 100 for FORMAT06.
Mob Format – YOUR PHOTOCINEMA was seeded to over 20 different sites and relevant forums, portals and communities of interest relating to photography, Flickr, Flash and other social media sites such as Mashable, Programmable Web and The Photostation.net.
Although the majority of the 25,000 visitors to the site during the festival were from the UK, it also received over 1000 visitors from the US and over 3000 from countries including France, Germany, China, Brazil, Italy, Canada, Spain and Ireland. These statistics highlight the growth of international awareness of the festival and participation worldwide.
The festival itself attracted over 80,000 people; approximately 20% were from outside the East Midlands and this includes many who were from outside the UK. Format was recently recognised as a festival of global significance by the Arts Council England and one of the key achievements in the arts of the last 60 years.
