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Festivals and markets

Festivals and markets: who works there and what each of them does

A festival is a temporary cinema with a deadline: a small office of four to twenty people for most of the year, then a venue, or six venues, running screenings back to back for ten days. A market is the trade half of the same week, with screening rooms, stands, badges and buyers.

Most UK festivals are charities, and their money arrives in grant-shaped lumps tied to one edition. That shapes the whole workforce: a core of three to eight permanent staff, then a wave of fixed-term contracts that starts three to five months before the event and ends a few weeks after the closing night. People work a circuit of spring, summer and autumn festivals, cover the gaps with cinema or distribution work, and are hired again by the person who saw them work last time.

  1. Festival director or artistic director

  2. Head of programming, programmers and viewers

  3. Festival producer or operations manager

  4. Industry and markets team

  5. Guest and delegate liaison

  6. Marketing, communications and press

  7. Technical manager and print traffic

  8. Volunteer coordinator

  9. Film festival assistantEntry-level job

Drawn from MFJF's own Foundations course Film Festival and Cinema Assistant (Festivals and cinemas: the map, the money and who is in the office; The festival year, the assistant's nine jobs and a week in a cinema; and The wider map, the path upwards and the people who walked it). The words are My First Job In Film's. © My First Job In Film 2026.

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