Celebrities, celebrity hunters, journalists and publicists are all creatures of habit.

Last year, the Toronto International Film Festival moved south from its 30-year home in the city's swanky Yorkville neighbourhood to its luxurious new headquarters, the Bell Lightbox, on King West. However, much of TIFF madness -- the premiere parties, the wheeling and dealing, the crowds outside the hotels and cafes waiting to say ‘Oh my God, I think I saw . . .' -- that stayed in Yorkville.

But when the Lightbox celebrates its first anniversary on Sept. 12 this year, much will have changed. TIFF is now synonymous with the Lightbox and its central location has become a beloved and familiar cultural institution in Toronto in less than a year. Meanwhile, the vibe around it has changed from stuffy theatre district to young and vibrant hotspot.

The King West area was already on the upswing when construction on the Lightbox started, but since then it has exploded. Restaurants, ranging from those run by celebrity chef Susur Lee to hip little burger and fish-taco joints, seem to spring up with regularity. The area's nightclubs are packed by the young and beautiful on the weekend, stealing a large chunk of the upwardly mobile clientele who used to go to the much maligned Entertainment District.

Last year, the celebs and party planners dipped their toes into King West, but this year they are diving in.

"What's different this year is a lot of the fun stuff, the studio stuff, the open bar parties where you are actually in with celebrities, that's been moving (south) to nightclubs," said Andrew Moretti, a party promoter and cofounder of Z-List, a social network for the partying elite.

It's a trend welcomed and anticipated by those standing to profit from the move.

"The studios want venues that are close to all the action, before it was all happening in Yorkville and this year it's down along King West," said Ken Bryan, the director of operations for the Roosevelt Room Supper Club, which is hosting TIFF parties for producer Harvey Weinstein and several film premieres.

"We built our club where we built it to capitalize on the proximity to the Bell Lightbox tower. We are huge champions of TIFF and what it's done for the neighbourhood. The right venues are staying and prospering and TIFF will only add to that."

After his first year as co-director of TIFF back in 2008, Cameron Bailey admitted that the festival wasn't as "plugged in" to the city as he would have liked. Three years later, he's praising the Lightbox for what it's done for TIFF, which organizers push hard as "the people's festival."

"The fact that this will be the hub of the festival in the fullest sense of the word, and that there's a real centre to the festival is so important," he said. "We'll have lots of activity, lots of people -- both professional and film fans -- in the building and a mix of that all festival long. That mix and that energy we'll be seeing more and more of this year. That's really important."

While much the action will be moving south, make no mistake, Yorkville will still be bumping.

For those unfamiliar with Toronto, Yorkville is Canada's premiere (read: most expensive) shopping district. In the 1960s, it was the centre of Toronto's art scene, a place where hippies flocked to see Neil Young and Joni Mitchell play in tiny coffee houses such as The Purple Onion. But hipness always gives in to richness eventually, and now Yorkville is packed with high-end retailers like Harry Rosen, Prada and Chanel that can pull in as much as $4,000 a square foot in sales, according to Fortune magazine.

On any given night its streets are lined with expensive European sports cars. Their drivers are men, their suits impeccably chosen, their hair thick but with streaks of grey. In the passenger seat, the women make you forget about the cars.

On King West though, the mode of transportation is cabs. Their clientele stumble into them at the end of a Friday night, wrinkled and untucked white shirts under blazers on the guys, the girls wobbling precariously on high heels.

"Both are really affluent. But Yorkville is a lot more old money, where King West is a lot more new money," Bryan said. "King West is a more vibrant party scene, Yorkville is where people go to see and be seen."

Of course, not everyone welcomed the move from Yorkville last year as it caused more than one old-time critic to choke on their cappuccino. New York Times reporter Michael Cieply complained about the food in the area and how King West's attractions consisted of Hooters, a Fox and the Fiddle pub and a backpackers hostel. It's true that they are still there, but Cieply's comments are similar to checking out Angelina Jolie and only noticing she has dirt under her nails.

The Lightbox helps class up the area, and hopefully this year, Cieply ventures away from just making a beeline between the Scotiabank Theatre and the Lightbox.

"(TIFF) is going to allow those who wouldn't normally go out on King West, to be exposed to King West, which is really the new part of Toronto where nightlife is taking place," said Bill Hennessey, the owner of Hennessey Events, an events marketing company.

Yorkville still has the edge when it comes to high-end hotels, but King West is rapidly catching up, with boutique spots such as the Thompson Hotel the expected residence of much of Hollywood's young talent.

But make no mistake about it, this year's TIFF is King West's party, and Yorkville will feel the loss.

Bailey, though, says things are only moving up for the festival, which will be Toronto's gain.

"Everything is aligning in just the right way. This whole area is going to feel like a real festival hub at last, in the truest sense of the word," he said.

"We'll be seeing people walking back and forth and bumping into each other on King St. and talking about the films and sharing in all the excitement of the festival. That's what people should be doing during the festival. That feeling and that excitement is what we wanted to nurture, inside and around our new home."

With files from Constances Droganes