In 1999 the Bay is due to get its own cinema complex. Byron Bay's history has partly proved him right. The film makers are just an example of the migration of arts professionals into the area which has occurred. The success of the recent Writer's Festivals points up the same phenomenon. It's too early to say how successful, and how richly grounded, this transformation will be.
Australian history is littered with failed experiments in arts communities.
But if this is a response to a genuine need and an organic development in Australian culture what we may be witnessing is, for the first time, the crystallisation of a sophisticated metropolitan culture outside the cities which have for so long dominated our experience.