Know before you go: the NYFF standby line

Following some truly rotten luck1 getting tickets for the New York Film Festival, I decided to try my luck again in a time honored tradition: the standby line. And it sure was… a time!

I really wanted to see Andrew Haigh’s new film All of Us Strangers in a festival setting because IndieWire warned me it’s “a nuclear-grade tearjerker,” and I wanted some insurance that I wasn’t going to be the only one crying in the theater.2 Well, joke’s on me, because I’m pretty sure I’m going to cry more once I’m able to see the whole thing—while I did manage to prevail in getting into the screening, I missed a decent chunk of the movie. (I’ll get into that in more detail.)

I’m writing this because I really wish a guide or something for the NYFF3 standby line had existed before this weekend, because there’s a lot that I frankly had no idea about. I know that of the few people who read this, even fewer live in New York, and even fewer actually need to do the standby line rigmarole,4 but it’s about the principle. So here are the things I wish I had known before I decided to spend my Sunday evening waiting outside and smelling exhaust.5 

Consider not doing the standby line.

Yeah, this is where I should disclose some bias, because if you haven’t picked up on it yet, I wouldn’t say I had the best experience. But seriously: if you can’t score tickets when they drop for the general public, it’s worth thinking about if you really can’t wait the three months max until a wider release. If it’s for a movie that’s getting infamy for a big twist, or everyone’s saying you should go in blind and you don’t want Twitter spoilers, or if it’s dropping on Netflix but the critics say it plays super well with a crowd, then maybe the standby line is worth it. But if it’s a quiet drama (like what I saw) you might be better off buying a ticket to a nice indie theater in a month or two. It’ll probably cost the same, if not less.

Get there early. Like, early early.

So you’ve decided to do the line anyway. How early should you be there? I got on line6 around 90 minutes before the slated showtime, and by then the line had already started wrapping around the building. I was advised by Reddit that 30-60 minutes in advance would probably be sufficient, but the problem is that the wait times can vary wildly depending on what movie you want to see. For something with insanely high demand like Poor Things, 90 minutes will absolutely not be early enough. I’d say Strangers was medium-to-high-demand and I barely got in.

But the reason I say you should get there even earlier is because out of the people who were lucky enough to get past the doors, only a few of them were let in before the movie started. A lot more of them, myself included, got in 20 minutes or more into the movie’s runtime. For a relatively short film, that meant I missed a solid amount, and I definitely felt that in my experience. So if you want to see the whole movie and you’re stuck in the standby line, being there and getting in is not enough—you have to be one of the first people on line. And while that wasn’t me, I’d guess that those people got there maybe four hours before showtime. This can be a problem because…

God help you if you have to pee.

As far as I could tell, there are no bathrooms available for people in the standby line. If you get in after the movie starts (or less than a minute before), you’ll miss even more while navigating the venue in search of a bathroom. I was okay because, with the wait time and the movie, it was only around three and a half hours before I could feasibly find a toilet. But if you get there four hours early to be first, and then add another two hours (or more) for the film, that’s six hours without being able to pee—not even including however long it took you to get there. This is another reason why you really have to be one of the first people on line: you have a better chance of being able to find a bathroom before the movie starts.

Bring food, a portable charger, and something to do while you wait.

I was able to pass the 90 minutes well enough on my phone, but I was really paying attention to that battery, and because I forgot to bring the right needles for my knitting project, I had to entertain myself by haranguing my friends over text.7 If you’re going to follow my advice and get there extremely early, you’ll need more than a phone. You’re also definitely going to want to bring food, preferably a meal if you’re going super early.

Responsible advice would also be to bring water but with the dearth of bathrooms… I’ll just leave it at “use your judgment.”

Mentally prepare for some musical chairs—and for people to get kinda mad at you.

Basically, be ready in case they assign you a seat that makes you squeeze past a lot of New Yorkers who lived here when there were still two twin towers—and are thus not afraid to tell you that you’re ruining the movie. In my situation, I couldn’t find my assigned seat in the darkness, and it turned out someone had actually accidentally claimed it anyway, which led to a solid amount of shuffling and at least one “I can’t believe this!” from someone who had scored tickets beforehand. And honestly, she was right to be annoyed! It’s definitely not that chaotic at most AMC movies I’ve been to, and I know I sometimes feel a twinge of annoyance when someone gets in late and makes the entire row stand up. I felt like such a disturbance (because I was one) and I just felt guilty the whole time, which made it difficult to sit back and enjoy the experience I had waited 90 minutes for.

Personally, I really don’t think the NYFF should let people in after the movie starts. It’s bad for the people who waited and are paying full price for a fraction of the experience, it’s bad for the people who bought tickets and are now getting jostled around, and the only real winner is the box office.

Stick around a bit after the movie ends, if you’re up for it.

I was feeling pretty anxious to get home after the whole experience, so I dipped as soon as the applause mostly ended. But I heard from a friend the day after that I missed the director giving a little chat after the film, including a (very tasteful) cum joke that I would have liked to see play out in a crowd of Upper West Siders with rent-controlled apartments. Either they didn’t advertise that this talk was happening or I just didn’t see it, but it’s still worth hanging around a little in a very nice venue for surprises like that. If you need some fresh air, the area around Lincoln Center is one of my favorite spots in the city, and I really like the small plaza across the street for thinking about what I just saw while enjoying a nice breeze.8

So would I do this again? Maybe, if I knew I could get there as early as possible, but probably not. Four hours is long, and while I could see myself doing it—I don’t have a life, I have a blog—it’s still a big ask. For now, I think it’s much more worth it to just wait until you can catch your must-sees at the Angelika or the Paris theaters. And if you need to be sure you won’t be the only one crying, give me a ring. I’ll have tissues.