What better way to kick off the Miami International Film Festival than with an event designed to add fun and intrigue to the venue before it even begins? Miami Dade College presents Reel It IN! - the kickoff party hosted on March 3, 2016 for those who want to party with a head-up on what the festival has to offer. The festival runs from March 3-14, 2016 and is sure to add a few surprises. Designed like a movie studio, the festival will have hosts and hostesses dressed like individuals from different movies as attendees go through each “scene” designed by sponsors and other vendors. Free acting classes, a forum, and clips from movies will be shown on the big screen. There will be a meet and greet session for celebrities and filmmakers, and a 2 minute pitching contest for those who think they can conjure up the thoughts for a movie in a quick instant.

A food station filled with foods from all over the world will be set up in the food court, with selections named after famous movies. Local performers will get the party started with a rendition of Dance Fever that will get the audience involved.

Designed to be a venue for the film industry and individuals who are interested in becoming a part of this world, there will be an entire section devoted to introducing workshops and events of interest to this crowd to assist in putting those important elements on their schedule for the week. This event draws hundreds of people every year with major celebrities. A VIP area will be available for those actors and actresses who will be making an appearance throughout the duration of the festival.

In the center of the room will be a life-sized version of the GEMS award, which is the mid-season festival. Designed to remind the crowd of the additional festival later in the year, applications for GEMS will be available at this event.

Tickets for this even go on sale in January, 2016 through Miami Dade College and Ticketmaster.

Previous sponsors for this event include the John S. & James L. Knight Foundation; Lexus; Miami-Dade County; Comcast, American Airlines; Telemundo 51; Miami Beach Visitor and Convention Authority; Miami DDA; HBO and HBO Latin America, and a host of other sponsors. Sponsorship opportunities for 2016 are still available.

The Miami International Film Festival was designed to bridge cultural understanding and encourage artistic development and excellence by provoking thought through film. By bringing the best of world cinema to Miami, the Festival presents the city and the film industry with a singular platform that fosters creative and technical talent.

The greatest trailer and marketing of 2013 must got to the new movie 'Carrie'. This movie chose to market itself by creating a viral video that has reached over 20,000,000 views at the time of this posting.

The clever marketers at Sony came up with this great idea to spoof coffee drinkers, by staging a fake incident at a coffe shop where unsuspected coffee lovers would witness the power of Carrie in real life.

Spoiler alert, this movie is about a girl with special but uncontrollable abilities. Those unsuspecting coffee drinkers were startled by witnessing Carrie's telekinetic powers on other people around her. Unbeknown to the coffee purchaser, everyone in the room were actors and they were going to appear in the best movie trailer of the year. Great experiential marketing, I think so!

The ability to create a direct connection with your audience is what experiential marketing is all about. This movie connected with those coffee drinkers who ran out of the store and most likely you, after you watch the below movie trailer. Could this create a spawn of new movie trailers? Chronicle in 2012 attempted to do this when organizers created a fake flying human, but the movie trailer Carrie takes it to a whole new level. Will you be in a Hollywood movie sometime soon?

From a marketing agencies point of view this trailer is a genie in a bottle or the holy grail of marketing and a experiential marketing dream for Ad agencies. Let us know what you think about these types of experiential marketing ideas.

If you are planning an event and looking for experiential marketing inspiration then consider this Carrie movie trailer as your foundation and direction for connecting with your audience. Any event that lacks the type of ideas that this movie trailer came up with, is probably not worth using. Remember the type of audience you are connecting with and make sure the content you come up with is appropriate.