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.