Sunday, October 21, 2007

Dreamers.

Big plans. Hey, let's build a ballpark in the middle of a corn field! Build it and they will come! A little voice told me so!

Works in the movies.

So lets build a humongous Fairgrounds that will sit empty most of the year! Let's take a crappy old theater that no one has been able to make profitable in years, and renovate it! Let's have a film festival! Before you know it we'll be another Sundance!

Most of the festivals we have downtown have the same tired vendors, year after year. I'm still sweeping up the straw from the bales in front of my store last month. Sweeping up straw and horse shit is a pretty good metaphor for the aftermath of one of these events. Cascade Festival is usually begging for money. Tower is usually coming up short. A museum gift shop in downtown Bend bleeds money.

But nothing happens without dreamers. Trouble is, you can't chain the founders to the event they created. The woman who started the Bend Film Fest. Apparently a real ball of fire. But she's moved on. The motivating force for almost all these public venues has moved on, leaving it to the next in line, for whom it is simply a job, not a passion. Or the next in line, who's job is to try to revive the event. Or the next in line who baby sits it's demise.

Not saying it's impossible. But no one ever seems to look very closely at the underlying numbers. The long term.

It's -- "Hey, I got a great idea. Come on, Mickey and Judy, let's put on a musical!"

Usually, it's the public that is left holding the bag.

You know, for worthy venues like the Tower Theater, I don't actually mind. I'm conflicted about it. I guess I believe that most art won't be supported voluntarily. Unfortunately. So we have these stealth projects. Sure the Tower will be self-supporting (when Pigs Fly.) But, it's something Bend NEEDS TO HAVE! So, if a little deluded optimism is what it takes, it's all for the cause!

I'm not sure what the answer is. It's just interesting to see these projects lose their bloom, almost always because the extraordinary individual who spearheaded the project has moved on. I suppose Bend is lucky to attract these people. I've looked at some other towns around the NW where those people never showed up, and you can tell. I suppose it's like a business, with a motivated owner. The difference is, you can't just walk away from a business after a couple of years and expect it to survive.

A few do survive long enough to become institutions. Others seem to struggle, year after year.

I suspect that if the backers of the Tower came to the people and said, this little theater will look great, and we'll have all kinds of interesting arty shows, but it will always lose a little money. Will you pay for it? Not in a million years. So, instead, they hope for the best.

I guess, even though I'm conflicted, that I have come around to thinking that transparency is best. If the project falls through, so be it. Private individuals, such as the folk behind the Les Schwab theater, or McMenimins, will do something similar for profit. Either that, or get public financing with the understanding that it won't really pay for itself.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Duncan, Review all the posts I made in the last few days on DVA and VCB.

$1M city money, 1/2 to VCB, 1/2 to DVA,

Most of the money is spent entertaining people, I mean paying for flying, and meals.

The whole reason the gal running the film festival left was that they didn't get their city money. We were actually paying dozens of people from all over the world to stay here and eat, drink, ...

All this PR & EVENT(s) has cost the city millions.

The way I see it is the 'ball of fire' come here, they cannot find a job, so they go and convince the city they can bring 1,000's of potential home-buyers, then the city gives them 1/2 MILLION BUCKS,... all that comes out of it is a BIG party, the 'ball of fire' moves on when the money quits flowing.

In summary the ONLY way to make a buck in BEND for newbies is to do a KURATEK, e.g. brown-nose city hall get $60k/mo forever, and a $2.5M parachute.

Everybody does it, who in the hell is paying for this??????

GageGeek said...

We have something like this going on here in Lake Havasu. Some folks want to build a second bridge out to the 'island'. The only bridge now being the London Bridge. For 98% of the time - the London Bridge handles the traffic without any delays. However, on holiday weekends it is another issue when the loads of Cali tourists flock to the town.

Lake Havasu is not unlike Bend as it too is being developed and the teeming masses that you don't get to see - we get in droves. Real estate is becoming critical and the developers are flocking out to the island to make a 'killing'. The average price of new construction there is +500k.

What properties the residential developers do not gobble up is being used to build a large hotel complex (Marriot's I believe).

A local group is now harping for a second bridge to accommodate the additional traffic to the island. The rub here is that the group wants the local citizens to foot the bill on the new bridge.

The thing that irks me is that the group is calling the project the 'Freedom Bridge' and trying to tie this fiasco to the other fiasco in the middle east...

Most long time residents here see it for the sham that it is. However, the developers have too much influence on the local government here.

Anonymous said...

[ sorry this got submitted to an older thread ]

Usually, it's the public that is left holding the bag.

*

Who else would invest in these fly by night scams?

Its like Juniper-Ridge, no matter how stupid or inflated or rediculous your proposition is, someone in city-hall will embrace the concept and fund it.

It's endless, Bend has an INFINITE checkbook, and no matter how insipid the idea, they'll spend the money. Especially if the idea involves food & wine ( party's ), if the idea has golden people show up, and special VIP areas to avoid the common taxpayer. Then EVERYTIME you propose such a Fraud someone like Jim Clinton will expend ALL their political capital on your behalf.

Certainly, Bend is a city with a loose budget. A city with too much money, and taxpayers with too much money. Bend is a magic place, where everyone gets to eat food and drink for free, and nobody ever pays for anything.

How come there are never any private investors for the events?

Everyone in Bend is an amenity parasite, and amenity ain't the view, its the people, food, and wine; the party's the endless VIP party's all summer long at Drake Park, where everybody except about 10% get free VIP passes. Music, wine, ... Nobody ever has to pay. There are always pre-partys, post-party's, ...

Like ball-buster that started the Bend Film Festival, she quit and left, because they cut her budget. This year the party's were nothing compared to the past, thus the Bend Film Festival is dead.

Bend Economy Man said...

So many people have come to Bend over the years and thought "with the right marketing, this place can make us some money."

The visitor board, EDCO and the city council still think that a marketing solution is what the local economy needs.

My take is that we are reaching diminishing returns on marketing. At a certain point people are like, "I know about Bend. It [does / does not] interest me."