Is the Bend Film Festival really so successful?

Is the Bend Film Festival really so successful that it needs to reorganized, or is something else going on?

All I know is, I've barely noticed it the last few years.  It seemed like it was everywhere those first few years.  I remember the big plastic blowup stage they installed on Minnesota St., so big it basically stretched from the buildings on one side of the street the buildings on the other side, with very little room to walk by.

Of course, if they had bothered to ask any of us merchants on the street if that was a good idea, we would have informed them that Minnesota St. is a wind tunnel at the best of times, and a hurricane corridor at the worst.  I believe they had to take it down prematurely, but that's just a hazy memory that could be wrong.

Anyway, I remember the constant headlines, the many stories in the papers, the pictures of the lines (which if anyone ever wanted to frame the word "hipster" with a picture, those lines would have worked.)  Like I said, I barely noticed that it even happened this year.  In fact, I remember asking people if it had actually happened.

I don't have anything against the Bend Film Festival, but I wonder if it one of those things where they mistook Bend for a "happenin' place" and aren't ready to give up the dream so the event sort of slowly dwindles into chaos and irrelevance.  Often, a charismatic and energetic founder gets it going -- and being charismatic and energetic, flakes out after a couple of years and no one ever really replaces them.

I often hear "numbers" that seem to contradict what I'm seeing.  The buses, the Cascade Music Festival, the golf tournament.  Everything seems to be hunky dory right up to the point they're not.

Meanwhile, though, we still have a spandex race every few days, so we got that going for us...