Film festival streaming platform with real screening windows
A film festival streaming platform on Flicknexs: per-film country limits, screening windows by publish time and expiry, passes, single tickets and TV apps.
Flicknexs runs an online film festival with country limits per film, screening windows set by publish time and rental expiry, single tickets by pay-per-view and passes by subscription, inside your own website and apps.
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Quick answer: A film festival streaming platform shows a curated program online for a fixed period, to a fixed territory, with tickets and passes. Flicknexs does this with per-title geo-fencing, a scheduled publish time and rental expiry as the screening window, pay-per-view single tickets, subscription plans as the festival pass, free preview minutes, live Q&A streams with chat and television apps.
Flicknexs provides film festival streaming platform as part of its white-label OTT platform. Flicknexs runs an online film festival with country limits per film, screening windows set by publish time and rental expiry, single tickets by pay-per-view and passes by subscription, inside your own website and apps.
Why a film festival streaming platform is about promises to filmmakers
A festival that streams is not a video library with a logo. Every film in the program came with a promise to the filmmaker or sales agent: it will be watchable only in these countries, only between these dates, only by ticket holders, and it will not be sitting online a week after the closing night. Break one promise and the next year’s program is harder to book. So the platform question for a festival director is not how pretty the player is but whether each of those promises can be set on each film, checked before opening night, and shown to a sales agent who asks for proof.
Flicknexs sets each promise on the title. Every film carries its own block or allow country list on top of the platform default. Its scheduled publish time opens the screening, and its pay-per-view rental expiry closes access for the buyer; together they are the screening window. A single ticket is a pay-per-view purchase, a festival pass is a subscription plan that includes the program, and free preview minutes work as the trailer. A live stream with chat carries the Q&A after the film. The television apps put the festival on the living-room screen, which is where audiences prefer to watch a feature.
Country limits depend on agreeing what a country is, and the reference for that is ISO 3166, the international standard list of country codes that geolocation services and rights contracts both use. It is worth reading the ISO 3166 overview before you draft territory clauses with sales agents, because the code list is what your allow lists will be checked against, and edge cases such as territories and dependencies are where a contract and a lookup service can disagree. Naming territories by their ISO codes in the contract removes that argument.
What Flicknexs gives a festival programmer
Eight things in the platform code that map to the promises a festival makes. Each is set per film in the admin.
Per-film geo-fencing
Block or allow country lists on each film, on top of the platform-wide rule, checked at playback.
Scheduled publish time
Each film becomes visible and purchasable at the exact date and time you set.
Rental expiry as the screening close
The pay-per-view rental window, with expiry, unseen-expiry and view count, ends access after the screening.
Single tickets by pay-per-view
Sell each film on its own with per-quality prices and free preview minutes as the trailer.
Festival pass by subscription
A subscription plan that includes the program acts as the pass; pass holders watch any included film.
Live Q&A with chat
Schedule live streams with live chat and optional pay-per-view for filmmaker sessions.
Series for sections and shorts
Organize shorts programs and sections as series with episodes, each with its own rules.
Television apps
Android TV and Fire TV apps on F3 and add-on television apps put the program on the big screen.
Source: Flicknexs platform documentation and architecture specification, 2026-09-03.
How a film festival streaming platform works on Flicknexs, promise by promise
Each thing a festival promises a filmmaker becomes a setting on the film. Here is what each setting does in the admin and what the audience sees.
Country limits are set on every film
Geo-fencing has a platform-wide block or allow list and a per-title list. A festival sets the platform default to its own territory and then narrows or widens each film according to its agreement: a world premiere might be limited to the festival’s country, a film with a regional deal to three. The viewer’s country is read from the request IP through a geolocation lookup at playback and a blocked viewer sees a refusal instead of a stream.
Publish time opens the screening
Every film has a scheduled publish time. You prepare its page in the weeks before, artwork, synopsis, director’s note, the trailer as free preview minutes, and set the publish time to the screening slot. At that moment the film appears on the website and in the apps and becomes purchasable. A festival with a daily schedule sets a publish time per film and the program unfolds on its own, which matters while the team runs the venue.
Rental expiry closes it
A single ticket is a pay-per-view purchase, and the pay-per-view rule carries a rental window with an expiry, an unseen-expiry and a view count. Set the expiry so that access ends at the close of the screening window, the unseen-expiry so a ticket bought on opening night cannot be used after the festival, and a small view count. After the window the player refuses, and once the festival ends you unpublish the film so nothing lingers.
Single tickets and the festival pass are two access rules
A single ticket is the pay-per-view rule with a price, and prices can differ by video quality if you want a premium ticket. The festival pass is a subscription plan that includes the program; a pass holder plays any included film without a separate purchase. Both rules can sit on the same film, so a visitor without a pass buys a ticket while a pass holder walks in. The purchase goes through your own gateway on the website.
Shorts programs and sections are series
A shorts block is a series with one episode per short, so it screens as a single program with one ticket and one window while each short keeps its own credits, subtitles and country list if a short has a different deal. Sections of the festival, competition, documentary, retrospective, are categories that shape the home page. Subtitles per film are uploaded as WebVTT tracks in the languages you need for an international program.
The Q&A is a live stream with chat
Live streams are scheduled events with live chat, optional pay-per-view and free preview minutes, and can be restreamed to YouTube channels as the plan allows. A festival schedules a Q&A after each premiere, includes it in the pass, and lets the audience ask questions in chat. There are no chat moderation tools in the platform code, so a moderator reads and answers rather than filters; keep that in mind when you decide which sessions get a public chat.
How to set up a festival program in the Flicknexs admin
Five steps, in the order a programmer would take them. Do the whole flow with one test film a month before opening.
- 1
Set the platform territory and create the sections
In Settings, switch geo-fencing on and set the platform default to the festival’s home territory using an allow list. Create categories for each section of the program and add the subtitle languages you will need to the language catalog. This is the frame every film will be placed into.
- 2
Create the pass plan and decide the ticket prices
Create a subscription plan named as the festival pass with the duration of the festival. Decide the single-ticket price and whether a premium quality ticket exists. Connect your gateway on the payment gateways page and run a test subscription and a test purchase before any film is loaded.
- 3
Upload each film with its rules
Upload the film, let transcoding produce the ladder, add artwork, synopsis, credits and subtitle tracks. On the access section set pay-per-view with the ticket price and the rental window matching the screening, include the film in the pass plan, and enter free preview minutes for the trailer. Add the film’s own country list if its deal differs from the default.
- 4
Set the publish time per film and build the schedule
Enter the scheduled publish time for each film to match the program grid, in the offset of your home territory. Build shorts programs as series with an episode per short. Schedule the live Q&A streams after each premiere and include them in the pass. Review the home page with the sections to confirm the program reads clearly.
- 5
Test from inside and outside the territory, then open
On test accounts, buy a ticket and take a pass, play a film before and after its publish time, and let a short rental expire. If you can, test from a blocked country through a VPN exit and confirm the refusal. Check the revenue reports show the tests. Then announce the online program.
Limits, tradeoffs and what festival streaming on Flicknexs does not do
Sales agents and filmmakers ask hard questions. These are the exact answers.
Encryption is not built in
Films are protected by per-title access rules, signed playback URLs with a time-to-live, geo-fencing and a visible logo watermark on every plan. Widevine, FairPlay and PlayReady encryption is not in the platform code; DRM is arranged through the delivery layer on request as part of an enterprise plan. If a sales agent requires encryption for a premiere, raise that scoping before you confirm the film, not the week of the festival.
The watermark is your logo, not a per-viewer mark
The player overlays your festival logo with a position, opacity and link, the same for every viewer. It makes a screen recording obviously yours, which helps a takedown, but it does not identify which ticket holder recorded it. Flicknexs does not describe it as a forensic mark, and you should not promise per-viewer marking to a filmmaker unless you have scoped it separately through the delivery layer.
Geo-fencing is by country and can be fooled by a VPN
The viewer’s country comes from the request IP. A viewer on a VPN exiting inside an allowed country passes the check. Rules are per platform and per title, not per device app. Most sales agents accept IP-based enforcement as commercially reasonable; put that wording in your filmmaker agreement so everyone signs the same understanding rather than discovering it during the festival.
No seat caps or timed virtual screenings
A screening window is a publish time and a rental expiry, not a ticketed showtime with a fixed capacity. There is no cap on the number of tickets a film can sell and no synchronized start where everyone watches together. If a filmmaker requires a capped audience, enforce the cap by hand: unpublish the film or remove the pay-per-view rule when your count is reached, using the revenue and content reports as your counter.
No offline viewing and no chat moderation tools
Films stream inside the window; there is no download for offline viewing. Live Q&A chat has no moderation tools in the platform code, so a human host reads the room. Neither is unusual for a festival, but both belong in your audience help page and your filmmaker agreement so nobody is surprised on opening night.
A worked example: a regional documentary festival going hybrid
A realistic operator: a ten-day documentary festival in one country that adds an online edition of forty films alongside its venue program.
The festival sets the platform territory to its home country and creates sections as categories: competition, national panorama, retrospective and a shorts program. Thirty films are cleared for the whole country, six are cleared for the home region only by their sales agents and get a tighter allow list, and four are venue-only and are never uploaded. Each film’s publish time matches its venue premiere, its ticket rental expiry ends seventy-two hours later, the shorts program is one series with twelve episodes, and every premiere is followed by a scheduled live Q&A with chat included in the pass.
The festival runs the plan with television apps for the festival month. F3 Premium includes 1 TB of storage and 10 TB of bandwidth monthly, and adds Android TV and Fire TV apps; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. Plans are flat fees and Flicknexs takes no commission on your revenue; payment-gateway fees are between you and your gateway. See our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. Tickets are pay-per-view purchases and the pass is a ten-day plan, paid through the gateway on the payment gateways page.
On closing night the team unpublishes the program from the admin, and the revenue reports by month become the settlement sheet for filmmakers who took a share of ticket income, paid by the festival from its own gateway records. The analytics show which sections drew the most completed views, which shapes next year’s online selection. The following year the festival keeps the plan through the summer to run a monthly members screening on the same setup, using the pvod platform pattern for one film at a time.
Pre-launch checklist for an online festival program
Run this list with one test film a month before opening, then again with the full program a week before.
- Platform geo-fencing is on with an allow list matching the festival territory, and each film with a narrower deal has its own list.
- Every film has a scheduled publish time that matches the program grid in the correct offset.
- Every single-ticket film has a pay-per-view price and a rental window whose expiry closes the screening as agreed.
- The festival pass plan includes every film it should and a test pass holder can play them without a purchase.
- Free preview minutes on each film cover the trailer length and nothing more.
- Shorts programs are series with one episode per short, in the intended running order.
- Subtitle tracks load and switch in the player on every film that needs them for the international program.
- A test viewer from a blocked country sees the refusal message, on the website and in one television app.
- Each live Q&A is scheduled, included in the pass, and a human moderator is assigned to read the chat.
- Your filmmaker agreement and audience help page state IP-based enforcement, streaming only and no built-in encryption.
How festival streaming fits the device apps and your revenue
Every promise you set on a film is a platform rule, so it holds in every app, and the money flows through your own gateway.
The website is in every plan, the phone apps arrive with F2 and the Android TV and Fire TV apps with F3, with Roku, Samsung, LG and Apple TV apps as add-ons. Feature films are watched on the television, so a festival usually wants F3 for the festival period; an app bought on one screen is watched on another because access belongs to the account. Country rules, publish times, rental windows and the pass are all enforced by the platform before any app receives a stream. The geo-fencing page covers the territory rules in depth, and the pvod platform page shows the same rental mechanics for a single premium title.
Revenue is tickets and passes. Tickets are pay-per-view purchases and the pass is a subscription plan, both through the gateways on the payment gateways page for web sales; sales inside the phone apps carry the store’s published fee. The coupons and discounts page covers promotion codes on Stripe checkout for early-bird passes. Because plans are flat with no commission, the festival keeps ticket income minus the gateway fee, and the revenue reports by month give the numbers for any filmmaker share, which the festival pays from its own gateway records.
Which plan includes festival streaming
Standard layers
Per-title geo-fencing, scheduled publish times, pay-per-view with rental windows, subscription plans, free preview minutes, live streams with chat and series are part of every plan. F1 Standard includes 300 GB of storage and 20 TB of bandwidth yearly for website streaming; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. A festival that sells online tickets from its website only can run from that plan for the festival period.
Pricing & billing
F2 Super includes 300 GB of storage and 20 TB of bandwidth yearly, and adds native Android and iOS mobile apps; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. F3 Premium includes 1 TB of storage and 10 TB of bandwidth monthly, and adds Android TV and Fire TV apps; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. Feature films are watched on television, so F3 is the usual festival plan. TV apps are available as add-ons on any plan, allowing you to expand your reach to more devices; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details.
Annual savings
Plans are flat fees and Flicknexs takes no commission on your revenue; payment-gateway fees are between you and your gateway. See our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. Yearly billing on F1 to F4 costs less per month than monthly billing; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. Bandwidth concentrates into the festival days, so compare the per-plan monthly allowance on our pricing page against your expected audience and film lengths, and choose the plan that covers the peak month.
Conclusion: what to do next
Already on Flicknexs
If you already run Flicknexs, take one title, give it a per-title allow list, a publish time an hour ahead, a pay-per-view price with a short rental expiry, and free preview minutes. Buy it on a test account, let it expire, and if you can, try it from outside the allow list. That single film is the whole festival mechanism in miniature.
Choosing a platform
If you are choosing a platform for an online festival, list the promises you make to filmmakers, territory, dates, tickets only, no lingering, and ask each vendor to show where every one is set on a single film. Ask separately about encryption and per-viewer marking and get written answers. Flicknexs shows the settings per film and states plainly which protections are built in and which are arranged.
Before a rights call
Read the companion pages next. The geo-fencing page covers country rules, VPN limits and per-title lists. The pvod platform page covers rental windows and per-quality prices for a single premium title. The DRM video protection page explains the protection layers and what is arranged on request, and the payment gateways page lists what you can connect for ticket sales.
Frequently Asked Questions
Everything you need to know about festival streaming on Flicknexs.
Everything a festival needs is part of every plan, so the cost is the plan for the festival period. F3 Premium includes 1 TB of storage and 10 TB of bandwidth monthly, and adds Android TV and Fire TV apps; see our pricing page for current plan and pricing details. There is no commission on tickets.
Yes. Each film carries its own block or allow country list on top of the platform-wide rule, checked at playback from an IP-geolocation lookup. Dates come from the scheduled publish time, which opens the screening, and the pay-per-view rental expiry, which closes a ticket holder’s access. Unpublish the film after the festival.
Yes. A single ticket is the pay-per-view rule on a film with a price and a rental window. A festival pass is a subscription plan that includes the program, so pass holders play any included film without a purchase. Both can sit on the same film, and web sales go through your own gateway.
Yes. Live streams are scheduled events with live chat, optional pay-per-view and free preview minutes, and can be restreamed to YouTube channels as the plan allows. Include the Q&A in the pass. There are no chat moderation tools, so assign a human host to read the chat.
No. A screening window is a publish time and a rental expiry, not a capped showtime. Any number of viewers can buy inside the window and each watches when they choose. If a filmmaker requires a capped audience, unpublish the film or remove the ticket rule by hand when your count is reached.
Not by the platform code. Films are protected by per-title access rules, signed playback URLs, geo-fencing and a logo watermark on every plan. Encryption with Widevine, FairPlay and PlayReady is arranged through the delivery layer on request as part of an enterprise plan, so scope it before confirming a film that requires it.
Build the shorts block as a series with one episode per short. The series carries one ticket price and one screening window, while each short keeps its own credits, subtitle tracks and, if needed, its own country list. The audience buys the program once and watches the shorts in order.
Yes. Access belongs to the account, so a ticket or pass bought on the website or in a phone app plays in the Android TV and Fire TV apps on F3 and in the add-on television apps, within the same rental window. Feature films are mostly watched that way.
The film page is visible, but playback is refused with the message set in the admin, before any stream URL is issued. The check uses the viewer’s country from an IP-geolocation lookup, so a VPN exiting inside an allowed country passes. Put IP-based enforcement in your filmmaker agreement.
No. Films stream inside the screening window on the website and in the device apps, with no offline download. That is what makes the rental expiry, unseen-expiry and view count enforceable at every play. Say so on the audience help page so nobody plans to watch on a flight.
Analytics reports pay-per-view revenue and subscription revenue by month, with content analytics per film for plays and completion. Export the festival month and pay any filmmaker share from your own gateway records. There is no split engine in the platform; the report is the input to your accounting.
Yes. Many festivals keep a lower plan through the year for a monthly members screening, using one film at a time with a publish time and a rental window, which the pvod platform page describes. The pass plan can be paused or repriced as a members plan between editions.