Tickets Selling Fast for the Upcoming Santa Barbara International Film Festival
John Palminteri
SANTA BARBARA, Calif. (KEYT) – With some of the top movie industry names coming to Santa Barbara next week, tickets are selling fast for the upcoming 2026 Santa Barbara International Film Festival (SBIFF).
The festival will run for 11 days starting February 4th for its the 41st year.
Some of the events are already sold out include the Maltin Modern Master Award with Adam Sandler, theVirtuosos Award, the Hammond Cinema Vanguard Awrd with Leonardo DiCaprio, Sean Penn and Benicio del Toro and the Outstanding Performer Award with Michael B. Jordan. The other sellouts are for the Tribute packages, the Film Geek packages and the Intro Packages.
Tickets are still available for the Arlington Artist Award with Kate Hudson and the Montecito Award with Stellan Skarsgard.
There are still many events including both movies and panel discussions with hundreds of seats available. That information can be found here.
They include the Directors panel, Producers panel, Writers panels, and Women’s panel.
The event has 200 films including U.S. and World Premieres.
Fans have a unique opportunity to see the arrival of the stars at the Arlington Theatre and many people behind the scenes who create films at all levels.
They will also be the first to see the newest movies, followed, at times, by a questions and answer session with some of the film makers.
Many will be cover social issues, environmental topics and a large percentage of the films were made by women, according to Roger Durling the Executive Director of the Festival.
There will be daily free events and many opportunities for students to participate as movie makers or to meet those in the industry that can be mentors.
For shows that are now sold out there will be RUSH tickets that open up when seats are unused the night of the event. “When we sell tickets we have to account for all the pass holders but not all the pass holders show up You may have instances when you have a sold out events and there may be 50 tickets that are empty seats,” said Durling.
For those going to the SBIFF McHurley Film Center mini-paks are punchcards with four transferable admissions on a first-come, first served basis. The five theatres will have more than 900 seats. “This might be the first year that we sell out on the mini packs. The little access (cards) to four movies. We may sell out on those. People are curious about the film center which opens next week,” said Durling.
The SBIFF is in a unique spotlight on the calendar. It falls just after the Oscar nominations and before the industry’s biggest night, the Academy Awards.
In addition to the film center, the SBIFF’s Riviera Theatre will also show films.
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