Date: Mon, 22 Aug 1994 11:22:47 -1000 From: crowell@teleport.com (Carl Crowell) Message-Id: Organization: Kites By Carl Crowell Subject: Longbeach Lament A Longbeach Lament Lets face it, the Pacific Northwest Economy is in the toilet. Timber and Fish are what drive the dollars through this land and without either, things get grim up here. The salmon season is shot due to over fishing, and all the trees have been cut down. Leave it to the big minds to look to the latest resource to exploit... tourists. Though I doubt that we will last as long as the salmon or timber. Longbeach can best be described as a quaint little nowhere community that happens to have a long beach. 20+ miles of beach. Nice sand, good soft waves, wind that loves a kite and some scenery. This year I will say that the weather was GREAT! The rain was minimal. There were even days that could be called sunny. The crowds were the largest that I have ever seen. People were packed all over the place. The Bolstad Road was lined with more vendors than I had ever seen. Only one thing really seemed to be missing from this festival... kite fliers. There were noticeably fewer this year. Lets look at why... Hotel rooms that run $30.00-$40.00 most of the year are $100.00 and more that week. House rentals (a very popular option at Longbeach) are at 200and more of their normal rate. Restaurants continued to serve orders from last year. (If you havent ordered your dinner at Milton York for 1995, dont even bother showing up next year!) For a spectator to pay to see an event is expected, for a performer to pay to perform is not. The benefits of the Longbeach event for the performers is the opportunity to see other performers, but as the cost of attendance goes up... Fair is fair. A lot of people do a great job at putting on a great festival. There are many restaurants and establishments that offer great service at a reasonable rate. But they are getting harder and harder to find as the local economy exercises what it feels is a monopoly on kite festivals. It is now cheaper to fly to Europe for a week and attend a festival or two there than to attend a festival in my own backyard. As more people discover this, I suspect that fewer and fewer kite makers will attend Longbeach in favor of events that cater to kite makers and fliers instead of the money grab that the Longbeach economy seems to expect. Like I said, there were more spectators there this year than ever before. People are obviously hearing about the festival and making an effort to attend just to see the kites. Now it will be interesting if the kites will keep showing up for the people. I hope so. carl = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = = =