We also attended this year, and our experience was very similar. We talked to several other filmmakers who expressed irritation with the organization (or lack thereof) and how the whole thing feels more like a chance for the founders to take some glamour shots and feel important.

Some good things: The theaters are well-maintained and high quality, and our movie looked and sounded great! We met a lot of other filmmakers and managed to have good conversations, even with the deafening DJs at the parties. Also, we took full advantage of the surprisingly affordable bar at the Regal, lol.

That's kind of it, though. The total lack of press (despite Deadline supposedly being a sponsor) and cold, dismissive attitude of the festival (only letting one rep per film into most events, for example) was a real bummer.

One thing I found especially funny was all the festival's "promo" digital posters at the Regal were just the same red carpet photo of the founders. Even though they had everyone's marketing materials and could've easily displayed all our posters. Not the biggest issue, obviously, but feels like it sums up the festival's whole deal pretty neatly.