The festival paints these devoted fans as passionate cinephiles who simply want to experience Hollywood magic up close. PR teams for attending celebrities frame the overnight campers as harmless enthusiasm—adoring admirers whose dedication proves star power. There's no scandal here, just youthful excitement about cinema and celebrity culture.
But sources close to festival security tell a different story. These overnight camping operations have become increasingly organized, almost transactional. Some fans sell their prime spots for hundreds of dollars. Others collect autographs purely for resale value. The innocence evaporated years ago when scalpers realized A-list proximity equals profit at festivals where celebrities are most accessible.
Variety reported on September 2, 2026 that Delsina Desanctes, age 19, was stationed outside the Palazzo de Cinema—the iconic Venice Film Festival venue—at 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday with umbrellas, suitcases, sleeping bags, and a tent. She told reporters her celebrity targets included Sydney Sweeney, Kendall Jenner, and Jonathan Ba. The festival runs annually in Lido, Venice, attracting thousands of international press and industry professionals.
The image of a teenager voluntarily sleeping on cobblestones for hours just to scream Sydney Sweeney's name is equal parts sad and predictable. Film festivals have become victim to their own glamour—rewarding obsessive behavior with celebrity proximity while calling it "fan culture." The real drama isn't the camping. It's what we're normalizing in the name of stardom.
The Venice Film Festival has always been about spectacle, but not usually this kind. While A-listers glide down the red carpet inside the Palazzo de Cinema, surrounded by photographers and security, a parallel universe unfolds on the cobblestones outside—where dedicated fans camp overnight with sleeping bags and tents just for proximity to celebrity royalty. Delsina Desanctes is 19 years old and was already stationed outside Venice's iconic cinema venue at 11:30 p.m. on Tuesday, surrounded by umbrellas, suitcases, sleeping bags, and even a tent. Her target list reads like a who's-who of Instagram-famous Hollywood: Sydney Sweeney, Kendall Jenner, Jonathan Ba. When asked what she hoped to gain from this uncomfortable vigil, her answer was simple and revealing: proximity itself. "I'm hoping to see Sydney Sweeney," Desanctes told reporters, as if the mere act of seeing—briefly, from several feet away, through a crowd of photographers—was the point. And in many ways, it is. The economics of celebrity sightings at major film festivals have transformed dramatically over the past decade. What once began as spontaneous excitement from fans genuinely moved by cinema has calcified into something more calculated. Sources familiar with festival operations tell Celebrity Bytes that these overnight camping situations have become increasingly organized, with unofficial hierarchies forming among repeat campers who claim prime positions near red carpet entrances. Some veterans reportedly sell their spots to newcomers for hundreds of dollars—a grim revelation that transforms "meeting your favorite star" into a transaction. The innocence of fandom has been replaced by something colder: an economy where celebrity proximity equals currency, and patience is merely the investment required to cash out when Sydney Sweeney or Kendall Jenner walk past. Festival organizers face an impossible situation. They cannot ban enthusiastic fans from public spaces without generating negative press, yet managing thousands of overnight campers creates security nightmares and safety concerns. The Palazzo de Cinema's surrounding areas lack proper facilities for extended occupation, meaning authorities must balance tolerating the devotion while maintaining order around one of cinema's most prestigious events. The deeper issue here isn't whether Delsina Desanctes will successfully glimpse Sydney Sweeney through a crowd—that almost seems guaranteed given festival logistics. The real question is what this behavior reveals about our collective relationship with celebrity culture in 2026. We've normalized sleeping on concrete for hours, organized overnight vigils around individual personalities, and built entire subcultures around the mere possibility of being near someone famous. Kendall Jenner, whose modeling career has long intersected with celebrity culture's more intense extremes, likely has no idea Desanctes specifically named her as a target. That's precisely the point—and perhaps the tragedy. The nature of these encounters means the camper invests everything while the seen remains completely unaware until that brief, transactional moment of eye contact—or more likely, complete disregard. Venice Film Festival continues through early September, with major premieres scheduled throughout the week. Whether Desanctes achieves her celebrity glimpse goals remains to be seen. But watching a teenager pitch a tent outside an Italian cinema at midnight for the mere chance of Sydney Sweeney sighting? That's the real show—and it plays every year in Venice without a single review.
