Venice Film Fest

We were there in 2003 at the same time as the festival and didn't notice it either. I think most of the festival action happens on the Lido, which is a separate island. One cool thing that we stumbled across, though I don't know if it was related to the festival, was an open-air showing of a movie in a piazza. For a few euros you could buy a ticket and watch a movie with a bunch of the locals.

This may sound silly, but I was there at the start of the Film Festival last year (August 29-Sept 2, I believe the festival started on August 29 last year according to wikipedia), and I honestly didn't really know it was even going on until I saw the special vaporetto line out to the Lido for the festival... in fact the afternoon I went out to the Lido it was down right empty on the beach and streets! I did book my hotel early (in March) but I had no problems with anything at all. Maybe I just got lucky or was stupid, I don't know! Nothing even really seemed that terribly busy, I had no trouble in restaurants, no trouble booking the Secret Itineraries tour ahead of time, no trouble with trains or getting on the vaporetti.... but I didn't see any celebrities :( I don't know if this is helpful or not but basically, I just didn't even notice it at all.

You will not notice that the festival is taking place unless you are out on the Lido. I went to the festival a couple of times in the 70's when I was living there but it was much smaller then. Saw a few movies at outdoor cinemas and it was fun, but I think it is now much more hectic.

Hotels are definitely tighter, but other than that, as folks have already said, you won't notice the Film Festival while you're in the main part of Venice. The Biennalle, on the other hand...

The first two times I was in Venice was during one or the other.

If you rent Globe Trekker on Venice, they visit the Venice film festival, and it's very interesting. You may want to watch it.