You know the health of a town by the state of its theaters. Opened in 1940, the Tower Theatre was the jewel of downtown Bend from the date of its opening until its closure in 1996. When I moved here in 1999, downtown felt lessened by its boarded-up windows and darkened marquee. After a herculean effort of renovating and reopening the Tower on Jan. 30, 2004, the beauty and historical import of downtown was once again alive, not just as a movie theater but a performing arts center and cultural hub for the entire community.
As the executive director for the last 16 years, Ray Solley has been an invaluable steward of this gorgeous piece of history and an invaluable reason for the Tower’s continued success. Solley recently announced his retirement for later this year, and the Source Weekly was able to catch up with him, looking back at his history with the theater and towards the future of the legendary space.
Source Weekly: Tell me how you initially became involved with the Tower. Was it closed at the time?
Ray Solley: No, the Tower was open when I applied for the job in late 2008. It was just four years into its newly renovated life as a performing arts stage. I found out about the job at a theater programming conference in Seattle. It was posted on a job board… literally… a piece of Tower stationery thumbtacked onto a bulletin board near the conference exhibit hall. I wrote down some of the details and thought, “This might be worth pursuing.” I had heard of Bend, a small real estate “boom town” in Oregon making a lot of top 10 lists.
The Tower ED job seemed like a good opportunity to run my own shop and staff. Plus, our kids were going to be in transition — one from high school to college, the other from elementary to middle school. After two decades of successfully surviving L.A., my wife Michelle and I were up for a new adventure. It seemed like the time was right.
SW: Did you have a specific vision for what you wanted the Tower to be when you first started? Did that change over the years?
RS: I just wanted the theatre to be full, busy and not perceived as some holy retreat for rich retirees. It needed consistent programming and marketing to establish itself as a community gathering place, featuring popular, high-quality acts with proven track records of attracting lots of folks for one-night-only shows.
Once that started to happen, in about 2011, we started adding more local events, like The Bend Follies, and annual productions of major Broadway musicals starring local actors, dancers and musicians.
The other business piece that changed over the years was the number of outside promoters renting the Tower as a mid-week stop for tours of artists we couldn’t otherwise afford. It started with a local promoter booking several shows for Brandi Carlile. Now we’ve become a regular playdate for a dozen national tour promoters, including the Knitting Factory and Emporium Presents, a Live Nation subsidiary.
SW: What have been some of the unique challenges in running the Tower? I assume there were many you couldn’t see coming.
RS: Well, first I had to get warm clothes! I was commuting to Bend from Southern California pretty much every other week during the winter of 2009. Then, I had to learn the events to program around if you wanted any chance of getting people to attend, like Ducks and Beaver football games and their annual Civil War clash, Summer Fest, WinterFest, Fall Fest, Munch & Music and whoever was playing at the amphitheater.
I’ve often said I must have been absent the day the professor of the “Executive Director Duties 101” class explained how to handle recessions and pandemics.
One challenge unique to performing arts theaters is getting people to attend more than one or two shows a year. The Tower Theatre Foundation, the nonprofit that has been responsible for the venue since 1997, has a mission to provide a wide variety of performing arts experiences at generally affordable prices. But that means people tend to pick and choose shows they already know or like. There’s not a huge crossover between fans of fly fishing films and Oregon Ballet Theatre. Yet both are legitimate mainstays of the lifestyle here. The challenge is you can’t survive just having the same 460 people coming to the Tower every time the doors are open. Our solution was to attract a total of 60,000 diverse and loyal patrons spread out over a year’s worth of events.
SW: What do you think makes the Tower such a unique venue to Bend?
RS: It’s a rare piece of living history. Folks seem to know, and spark to, that it’s run by a local group for the entire community. And visitors. Our goal is to make everyone feel welcome and treated with a friendly attitude. Making a memory at the Tower is a pretty personal and local experience. We know you don’t have to attend the Tower. We’re thankful you chose to be there!
SW: Was there something specific that made you think now was the perfect time to retire? Are you happy with where you’re leaving the Tower?
RS: I’m not the “retiring” type. I like projects and seeing signs of success. The Tower was at the height of its powers, I thought, beginning in 2020. Everything was clicking — donations, memberships, attendance, marketing. Then the pandemic hit, and I just couldn’t see leaving when everything was down and the future of public gatherings so uncertain.
Fast forward to 2024. We now are in solid financial shape, with a reserve for emergencies. We’re starting a long-delayed planned giving program. The number of Tower members has quadrupled. The staff has tripled since 2009, essentially handling many of the duties I had to manage at the beginning. The organization is better positioned now than ever to grow its mission, programming and revenue. The opportunity for a new ED to take the Tower to new heights is pretty exciting.
SW: Where do you hope to see the Tower go in the future? What do you hope is the legacy of the space?
RS: I really want to drive by the theater or see a post about an upcoming event or new project the Tower is launching that I would never have imagined possible. I honestly look forward to being happily surprised and excited by the Tower’s next steps.
This article appears in The Source Weekly March 13, 2025.
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What a wonderful story! We moved to Bend in 1989 and watched the drive to renovate the place. The efforts of many led to the successful completion of a beautiful venue! I have been to many of the “shows” supporting local schools and organizations. Ray, job well done!
IMO the music at Tower seems to be geared towards the 50+ y/o demographic. I think there is definitely an opportunity to capture more of the younger folks with some acts that might normally play Midtown Ballroom. The Midtown is frankly a horrible concert experience. However, it is our largest indoor venue so many bands often have no choice but to play there or skip Bend all together. Tower would provide for better sound quality, more central location, real bathrooms etc.
The Tower should invest in seats that are easily removed / reinstalled for a GA style events (at least on the floor level; balcony could still get away with fixed seats). Think Capitol Theater in Port Chester NY. This will attract more artists (and fans) as many concerts are better experienced in a GA setting.
I look forward to seeing how the 4 Peaks shows go in June as these are exactly the type of shows that could thrive here. I think there could be much more of these if the investment in the seating set up was made.
Great story that makes us want to visit your great town.
Joan and Richard