Trips & Outreach ·
Banff World Media Festival and the Service Producer Pitch
Banff was the clearest version of the KFS travel pitch: show up with a focused service-producer deck, make the Okanagan easier for producers to understand, and turn hallway conversations into follow-up work.
This trip had a clearer offer.
The Banff World Media Festival trip was built around a sharper KFS deck: Canadian service producer, Okanagan locations, regional crew, equipment access, local logistics, and the production advantages that come with working in British Columbia. Instead of trying to sell everything at once, the pitch was simple: if a producer needed a credible BC partner outside the usual Vancouver production centre, KFS could help make Kelowna practical.
That mattered in 2024 because the market was still resetting after the 2023 writers and actors strikes. Development conversations were moving again, but a lot of producers were watching budgets, tax credits, broadcaster appetite and production risk very closely. Banff was the right room for that kind of grounded, specific offer.
The follow-ups were specific.
The strongest conversations were not abstract networking wins. Shauna Hardy at Sea to Sky Entertainment became a real follow-up around finding a way to work together. Leah Camenzind at TELUS helped keep a development conversation moving toward feedback and next steps. Eimear MacCarrick also stayed in the orbit for possible collaboration and future project discussion.
Banff also overlapped with the wider Canadian screen circuit James had been building through Ottawa and other trips, including repeat touchpoints with producers, music supervisors, local collaborators and friends such as Norm Coyne, Rab Bradlea and Sandy Hoekstra. The value was cumulative: each trip made the next conversation warmer and more specific.
Banff proved this trip category belongs on KFS.
This was not a vacation recap and not a press release. It was business development in the field: carrying the deck, explaining the Okanagan, listening for where producers were actually stuck, and keeping enough record of the trip that the follow-up did not disappear into memory.
Banff helped clarify how these outreach posts should work going forward. The important pieces are the event, the people, the company context, the deck or offer being tested, and the progress made after the trip.
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