CineVegas hiatus another grim economic indicator

By Joe Brown

Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2009 | 2 a.m.

The first leaf fell last year. Word trickled out that the annual Vegoose indoor-outdoor rock festival was dead, and October in Las Vegas ended with an odd quiet. Then the Las Vegas Art Museum shut its doors. Bracing against the impending ill wind, the boards of the Las Vegas Philharmonic and Nevada Ballet scrambled to avoid blowing away completely. Thankfully, they both hung on.

The branches seemed almost bare when, last week, the CineVegas International Film Festival announced it will be sitting out what would have been its 12th year.

It was just the latest blow in a war of attrition on a local arts scene that was just beginning to feel its roots were secure. We just lost — even if only temporarily — another one of those things Las Vegas could proudly point to and say, “See? We are a real city!”

Some of this can be attributed to the normal cycles and churn that affect the arts and culture industry like any other. But it’s clear that the chilling villain is the economic downturn, which has brought a blight to the Las Vegas landscape. Visitors are down — you can feel it in the traffic and in the parking lots — and those who do come are gripping their ATM cards tighter, looking for free tickets and demanding discounts.

The fall climate has also affected the Strip: Last week, citing the “uncertain economic climate,” Caesars Palace announced that the annual Comedy Festival will go dark in 2010, in what would have been its fifth year.

Before that, we saw the brief desert blooming of Broadway musicals — “Spamalot,” “The Producers” and “Mamma Mia!” — drop off one by one. The venerable “Folies Bergere” packed its feathers and flew back to France. The eternal and seemingly indestructible Charo recently turned an ankle and put her open-ended gig at the Riviera on ice. Wayne Brady just canceled all of his October dates at the Venetian because of “vocal strains” (though he continues to host tapings of “Let’s Make A Deal” at the Tropicana).

Bundle up and brace yourself: The losses aren’t finished. More shows and arts groups are certain to fold up — or just never happen.

We all view this slow-motion train wreck from our own perspective, of course, and the money crunch has had me wondering if there will be a job left for me. Two years ago the Las Vegas Sun brought me here to chronicle and comment on the nascent local culture and entertainment scene — to pay some much-needed attention to the arts groups that have been quietly growing a few miles away from the topless revues, UFC brawls and celebrity tattoo parlors.

But then came the early frost, and the cultural turf off the Strip is contracting and turning brown. You can’t blame that on tourists — there are nearly 2 million residents in the metro area, and our arts groups still have to go begging for funding and audiences.

The sad CineVegas news comes just as it was developing a distinct personality and profile on the world film festival circuit. It has evolved into an approachable, accessible film festival for tourists and locals alike, with a unique one-stop-shopping location in the Palms that centralized all screenings while offering festivalgoers almost every amenity imaginable.

CineVegas Artistic Director Trevor Groth, who also selects films for the Sundance Film Festival, mixes the commercial and offbeat, balancing Hollywood premieres (which bring in customers) and indie finds (which earn street cred) with more than a sprinkling of Las Vegas-themed movies and new work by UNLV students and other aspiring filmmakers.

This year CineVegas compressed its schedule from 10 days to five, reducing costs and making the festival more digestible. But that apparently wasn’t enough of a cutback to withstand the coming economic weather. The plan, said CineVegas President Robin Greenspun, is to take a hiatus in 2010, wait for the economy to recover a little, do some fundraising, and return in 2011. “Rather than allow the economy to affect its level of quality,” Greenspun said in her announcement, “we have opted to put the event on hold.”

What nobody — including me — wants to say out loud is that a sabbatical may turn out to be permanent, that CineVegas may not be able to regain its momentum and hard-won prestige.

Losing CineVegas for good is a grim thought for moviegoers in a city that doesn’t have a theater dedicated to screening independent fare, foreign films and repertory classics. But the fact that CineVegas has lasted 11 years means there must be some appetite for such things.

Doesn’t it?

Let’s hope CineVegas can bounce back — it took a year off in 2001, and came back stronger.

The lesson lingers: If you love something in this town, actively support it; don’t take it for granted. It might not be here tomorrow.