The authors examine managerial practices of pulsating cultural institutions arranging film festivals and awards’ procedures. The machinery of any repeatable film festival implies cycling pattern, that is passing through certain sequential stages with the purpose of their own. Event operational activity is characterized by peaks before and during the event and falls after the festival execution. «Pulsating organizations» concept is used to highlight film festivals specific nature with the scope of activities that expands and shrinks. Despite the fact that organizational and economic mechanism of the event activities is characterized by unique features associated with the discrete service delivery (including cash flows intermittency, the need in new sources of funding, demand in staff during concrete stages of the festival cycle), there are no special publications analyzing a festival as an organization or within the management framework. tte pulsating effect which emphasizes primarily changes in the number of employees, has an impact on the inner organizational processes, as well as on its external environment, e.g. customer relationship management. Analysis of pulsating effect overcoming models will help to identify the algorithm of more efficient policies for film festival structures’ management.