WILLiFEST 2010

The Knit - Pt. 2

I woke up early the next morning and debated whether to call The Knitting Factory or to just jump on the train and head down to the club’s Tribeca location. Since getting on the subway meant putting on pants, I decided to make my pitch on the phone. I googled “Knitting Factory,” and was speaking to the club’s manager within minutes. He loved the idea of the Williamsburg International Film Festival being held at the club, but was non-committal when I suggested we meet face to face. The Knitting Factory’s move to Brooklyn was still a year away, and the manager told me that as much as he wanted in, it wasn’t realistic to discuss anything so far in advance of the relocation. He said we should stay in contact, but I hung up the phone pants-less and disappointed. 

I had gotten so attached to the idea of having my festival hosted by the famed Knitting Factory that I didn’t even want to consider another venue. The fit was too perfect. We would both be newcomers to Williamsburg, eager to tap the neighborhood’s vast creative resources. For my festival to premier at the Knitting Factory the same year the club would open its doors in Brooklyn would have been ideal. But I couldn’t start producing a festival without somewhere to hold it, so I started to slowly convince myself that maybe it wasn’t meant to be. I’d almost completely given up on the idea of WILLiFEST when one day, months after my initial conversation with The Knitting factory, they called. It was now January 2009, and the Tribeca club would close in July. The new club in Williamsburg would open in September. Now that the opening date for the Brooklyn location was set, the club was even more excited to be involved with WILLiFEST. The Knit was thrilled by the notion that hosting WILLiFEST could be a great way to promote the club’s arrival in Williamsburg, and we scheduled a meeting for the following week.

The Knitting Factory was eventually going to be totally onboard and my dream of creating the world’s largest block party was one step closer to coming true. Only days earlier I was about to abandon the idea entirely and now I was headed to Brooklyn to meet with The Knitting Factory’s manager and talent buyer. But the road ahead was still a rocky one and filled with potholes that can only be found in a city like New York.