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Case study: the Annecy Festival, a landmark in animated film, relies on Infomaniak's solutions

Friday April 17th, 2026
|In AOD & VOD, Online ticketing, All the news
|By Mattéo Omasson

The Annecy International Animation Film Festival and its professional market, MIFA, bring together the general public and animation industry professionals from around the world, with over 600 events held across multiple venues during a single week. The festival attracts figures such as Terry Gilliam and Wes Anderson, as well as the world’s leading studios (Disney, Pixar, Netflix, Xilam, etc.). For the organiser — the public cultural cooperation body CITIA — the challenges extend far beyond programming screenings for thousands of attendees. This case study explores how Infomaniak’s solutions are deployed to meet the full range of needs of a particularly demanding organisation, before, during and after the event.

Managing two distinct events and different audiences

The Festival takes place over a very short period — remarkable when you consider it encompasses several hundred events: film screenings, cinema masterclasses and more. Its defining characteristic is a hybrid B2C/B2B format, effectively two festivals in one. The team must flawlessly manage visitor flows across multiple venues, serving different audience profiles with varying access rights — accreditations, guest tickets, and on-site purchases.

Concentrating such large audiences into such a narrow timeframe is the festival’s core operational challenge. The ticketing system must be immediately operational, reliable, and capable of handling peak loads — all the more so because a significant portion of the staff are volunteers who need to be trained efficiently and work independently.

Securing large volumes of data is another inherent challenge for a film festival. Video files are particularly large and require robust infrastructure with high-capacity storage at competitive rates. The festival’s operational data and several virtual machines also need to be fully backed up.

Video-on-demand streaming is another key requirement. Films must be accessible smoothly and securely — both for internal use by the festival team and for accredited professionals during MIFA.

Why Infomaniak?

CITIA’s choice of Infomaniak was driven by the specific demands of organising a complex international event:

  • A proven ticketing solution, refined over many years and tailored to large-scale recurring events like the Annecy Festival.
  • Dedicated support, including staff training, onboarding assistance at festival launch, and targeted help during critical phases.
  • A long-term partnership, enabling tools to evolve and be customised from one edition to the next.
  • A single provider covering multiple needs, consolidating ticketing, data backup and VOD under one roof.
  • A commitment to sustainability, aligned with the values of a festival nestled between lake and mountain.

“Being able to work with a single provider who can develop and adapt the tools from one edition to the next greatly simplifies project management and provides long-term technical confidence.”

Châu Tran-Quy, Head of Development Projects – CITIA

The challenges

Ticketing:

  • Importing and managing the scheduling of several hundred events, each with different access rules depending on the audience.
  • Handling ticket sales and online bookings for both accredited attendees and the general public.
  • Managing access control for tens of thousands of people across multiple venues.
  • Training staff quickly — including volunteers — on the ticketing platform and access control equipment.

Data backup:

  • Backing up approximately 25 TB of data generated by the festival’s operations.
  • Offsite backup to minimise risk in the event of an incident, particularly during the festival itself.

Video on demand:

  • Centralising and on-the-fly encoding of video submissions received during the film entry process, particularly for competition entries.
  • Ensuring reliable access to a video library for festival-goers and MIFA-accredited professionals, even during peak usage periods.

Implementation: ticketing, backup and VOD to cover every need

Ticketing setup and operations

Before the festival, CITIA’s teams import all events directly into the Infomaniak ticketing platform, along with their specific configurations (availability, audience access rights, etc.). The platform supports multiple accreditation types, which is especially useful for the professional market (MIFA). Online ticket sales and session bookings open ahead of the festival and remain available throughout.

Infomaniak supports the CITIA team with tool training and access control preparation ahead of the launch.

During the festival, staff use the provided scanners and the ticketing mobile app to validate entry at venue doors. The platform also supports on-site ticket sales. Infomaniak is on hand to provide technical support as needed, particularly during critical phases such as opening day.

After the festival, ticketing data is available for attendance analysis and usage review, informing the preparation of future editions.

Data backup

CITIA uses Swiss Backup with 25 TB of storage. Certain data and virtual machines are backed up via Veeam software, enabling offsite, secured backups.

Video on demand (VOD)

Infomaniak’s VOD platform hosts the festival and MIFA video files, totalling approximately 2 TB. It is used as a full API solution, allowing CITIA to integrate VOD directly into its own tools and centralise competition content and the professional video library, accessible to accredited attendees.

Results

CITIA has a reliable, proven ticketing solution to manage all access to the Annecy International Animation Film Festival and MIFA. By remaining within the Infomaniak ecosystem, the festival team also benefits from offsite data backup and a VOD platform for hosting and presenting video content for professional use. The numbers speak for themselves:

  • 18,200 accredited attendees with access to online ticketing and events
  • 6,550 professionals at MIFA
  • 4,500 students
  • 118 countries represented
  • 136,000 admissions across the full edition
  • 207,000 bookings, pre-bookings or printed tickets

“Over the years, our relationship with Infomaniak has grown into a genuine partnership — including custom developments built to our specifications. The efficiency of Infomaniak’s ticketing platform gives the team real peace of mind and significantly reduces the need for improvisation during the festival.”

Thomas Détharré, Head of Systems and Networks – CITIA

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