Four prices, one week, one decision
SF IndieFest presents the 21st San Francisco Short Film Festival from Oct 15 to Oct 22, 2026. The live programme runs seven nights at the 4-Star Theater, 2200 Clement St, San Francisco, 94121. The organiser prints four prices for that week on the festival welcome page: 15 dollars for a live seat, 10 dollars for a virtual single, 95 dollars for the Live+Virtual Screenings Pass and 65 dollars for the Virtual Screenings Pass. A fifth price carries a condition. With proof of an EBT or SNAP card, the organiser offers 5 dollar tickets at the Green Film Festival.
Twelve virtual programmes stay open across the whole Oct 15 to Oct 22 window. Seven of the eight festival days carry a live show. The festival screens 88 shorts from 15 countries, and the published runtimes add to 1,019 minutes.
The seat count that sets the opening
The 4-Star Theater house is 120 seats, unreserved. Seven programmes at 120 seats give a weekly ceiling of 840 seats, and the organiser publishes the sales against that ceiling in its own ticketing data.
Nine days before opening night, at the ticketing read on Oct 6, 117 of the 840 live seats are gone. That leaves 723, or 86 percent of the house, open.
The distribution matters. Closing Night on Wed Oct 21 carries 36 sold and 84 open. Opening Night on Thu Oct 15 and True Stories on Sun Oct 18 carry 24 each, with 96 open. Spontaneous Connections on Mon Oct 19 carries 13. Funny LOL on Fri Oct 16 carries 12. An Animated World on Sat Oct 17 carries 6. Spine-tingling Stories on Tue Oct 20 carries 2, which leaves 118 of 120 seats open.
Six nights start at 8:15 or 8:30 p.m. and finish at 10:15 or 10:30 p.m. Sunday Oct 18 is the only 5 p.m. start.
What ten people pay on each rung
Ten live seats for one night cost 150 dollars. Ten live seats across all seven nights cost 1,050 dollars. Ten Live+Virtual Screenings Passes cost 950 dollars, which is 100 dollars below the single-seat route for the same seven nights.
The pass break-even is arithmetic. A 95 dollar pass covers what seven 15 dollar seats cost, with 10 dollars left over. A party that attends six live nights spends 90 dollars on singles. The pass starts paying at the seventh live night.
Ten Virtual Screenings Passes cost 650 dollars. The twelve virtual programmes price at 10 dollars each as singles, so ten people across the full virtual slate pay 1,200 dollars. The virtual pass starts paying at the seventh of the twelve programmes.
The 5 dollar EBT price undercuts every rung and carries its own limit. The welcome page reads: limit one ticket per show per cardholder. Ten people need ten cards to buy ten 5 dollar tickets to a single show, which is 50 dollars.
Two terms that bind a party of ten
The pass menu prints two conditions. Passes can only be purchased and redeemed online. Buyers must select tickets for all live screenings in advance, and the same page states that unticketed day-of-show admission is not guaranteed.
The 5 dollar programme sits on the same welcome page and names a different festival. The line reads: with proof of an EBT or SNAP card, folks are now eligible for 5 dollar movie tickets at the Green Film Festival. The Green Film Festival runs the identical Oct 15 to Oct 22 window under the same organiser. The discount code printed for the box office is moviesforall. A virtual buyer at the 5 dollar price emails a photo of themselves holding the card.
The ask for Oct 15 to Oct 22
Open with the single seat for a one-night visit. Open with the 95 dollar pass for a party that will attend more than six of the seven live nights. Open with the 65 dollar pass for a party that wants the virtual slate and stays out of the theater. Open at 5 dollars only where every member of the party holds an EBT or SNAP card.
The four rungs are per person. The organiser publishes no group tier and no group code for the week, and names no hotel partner. A party of ten buys ten of whichever rung it picks.
The festival contracts no rooms, so the room side holds the leverage. The 4-Star Theater sits at 2200 Clement St in the Richmond District. A hotelhaggle request sends one offer to 50 or more hotels at once, and hotels answer in 24 to 72 hours. Most hotels in the network publish group rates at 10 or more rooms per night, and some at five. The rate takes no markup, and no answer obliges the party to book.
Date the rooms against the platform shoulder band. Nights from Sunday to Thursday run 20 to 30 percent below peak nights on the platform published figures. Five of the seven live nights fall on a Thursday, a Sunday, a Monday, a Tuesday or a Wednesday. Friday Oct 16 and Saturday Oct 17 sit outside the band, and Closing Night on Wed Oct 21 is the strongest shoulder night of the run.
Send five questions. Ask the rate for the five shoulder nights and the two peak nights as separate figures. Ask the room type and the bed configuration. Ask the cancellation window and the deposit. Ask the parking rate. Ask for the concession list, which the platform names as complimentary breakfast, waived resort fees, free parking, suite upgrades and flexible cancellation terms.
The seat inventory is the party argument. 723 open seats nine days out tells every property in the Richmond District that the week is soft, and a request for ten rooms puts the same facts on the table.
