How Black Nights Film Festival uses Zelos to dispatch on-demand tasks to 450+ volunteers
How Black Nights Film Festival uses Zelos
Black Nights Film Festival (PÖFF) is an A-class film festival held every November in Tallinn, Estonia. It screens hundreds of films and brings thousands of international guests to the country each year. Between 450 and 550 volunteers staff the festival’s events, screenings, and venues during the run.
Most of the volunteer schedule is built long before the festival starts. What runs on Zelos is the on-demand layer: the schedule changes, the no-shows, the busy nights that need extra hands, and the PR and social-media tasks that come up across the festival fortnight. PÖFF has been doing this on Zelos since 2018.
The pre-festival volunteer schedule is built outside Zelos. Once the festival starts, Zelos handles everything the pre-planned schedule did not cover: late-breaking schedule changes, replacements for volunteers who can’t make a shift, extra hands when an event runs busier than expected, plus PR appearances and social-media ambassador tasks. Coordinators post these tasks as they come up, and volunteers claim what fits.
The challenge
PÖFF runs at A-class film festival scale. Hundreds of films screen across a fortnight. Thousands of international guests arrive on planes that don’t always land on time. The pre-festival schedule covers most of what 450 to 550 volunteers need to do. It does not cover everything.
Things go wrong on the day. A volunteer drops off the schedule the night before. A flight delay reshuffles a guest appearance and the originally scheduled host can’t make it. An event turns out busier than expected and needs more hands. Something quietly gets overlooked during planning and only surfaces once the festival is live.
Things also come up on top of the schedule. A promo event the marketing team didn’t have on the calendar. A social-media moment that needs an ambassador to recommend a film to their followers. A photo opportunity with a guest at short notice.
None of these are big enough to redo the schedule for. All of them are small enough to be solved by “find one available volunteer, fast.” The pre-festival schedule has no slot for them. The volunteer coordinator used to fill that slot personally, working through the volunteer list and phoning around until someone said yes.
The solution
PÖFF posts on-demand tasks in Zelos as they come up, using it as a volunteer dispatch app for the festival’s unscheduled middle. Each task is small, specific, and time-bound: cover the 8pm Q&A because the original host can’t make it, show up to a press event at the cinema entrance, share a recommendation for tomorrow’s film on your social media. Volunteers open the app, see what’s available, and claim what fits their day.
Points and badges track contributions across the festival. A volunteer who has covered three replacement shifts and shared four social-media recommendations has the points and badges to show for it. The festival’s volunteer record sits inside the app.
The coordinator no longer has to phone around for backup. When a shift opens at short notice, the task goes into Zelos and a volunteer claims it. The coordinator does not need to personally negotiate with hundreds of people every time something needs doing.
Promotional and ambassador tasks live in the same task list as logistical replacements. A “recommend tomorrow’s film to your followers” task sits next to a “cover the missing host at 8pm.” Both count toward the same point total. Both contribute to the same festival.
This frees the coordinator’s time for the work that does need a human: setting the festival’s volunteer culture, recognising the people doing the most, and being available for the things that genuinely need her attention.
The results
PÖFF has run its on-demand volunteer dispatch on Zelos every November since 2018, with a volunteer base of 450 to 550 people each year.
The pre-festival schedule still gets built the way it always has. Zelos sits alongside it, handling the things the schedule cannot pre-empt: replacements, reshuffles, unexpectedly busy nights, and the PR and social-media moments that come up across the festival fortnight.
When something goes wrong on the day, a single task posted in Zelos finds the next available volunteer instead of forcing the coordinator to phone around. When the festival needs a push on social media, the share task lands in the same place as the usher replacement. Volunteers self-organise around the work. The coordinator stops being the bottleneck.
The relationship has run since 2018. The festival happens once a year. The volunteer community continues year-round.