Word is reaching Cryptomundo that the October 20-21, 2007, National Bigfoot Symposium planned for Arcata, California, has been cancelled. The website that was sponsoring this event is announcing it has been cancelled, after various attempts to keep it alive have failed.

We apologize for any confusion and any false associations anyone may have assumed from our attempts to pass along this breaking news. We are not linked to the symposium nor do we know anything about the actual decision-making that took place. We have no idea what’s happened with the symposium and are only posting here the essence of what anyone can read over at the Bigfoot Forums, specifically under this thread. We are neither critics of the symposium nor sponsors of it. Specifically, the BFF site has been openly expressing what others have said, but we are sorry if those associated with the event feel Cryptomundo wishes to get involved in any kind of judgement. We do not. We were merely meeting a public need to know what was going on and trying to answer the question “why.” We have no vested interest in anything to do with this conference or anything to do with it.

We are merely reporting news and commentary here, as happens with all blogs.

The reasons for why the symposium was cancelled, as mentioned on the internet at the BFF, in summary, were:

1) From the point of view of the organizers, the Bigfoot community “didn’t support” it. Not enough tickets were sold to afford the fees of the speakers and travel that needed to be secured for the event.

2) From the point of view of critics (not Cryptomundo, please note) of the symposium -

a) the organizers had “self-destructive” tendencies;

b) the organizers were a “secret committee” out of step with their audience;

c) the prices of the tickets were “too high,” @ first $250 each, later reported “slashed” to @ $160;

d) the mistrust of the “motives” of the symposium (300 attendees x the fee – expenses = profit); and

e) the symposium was far from “mainstream.”

The organizers have yet to put forth any kind of public announcement regarding the cancelling of the event (other than one Spartan message on their website), thus we are passing along the above as a public service for those that wish to rearrange their plans for October 20-21.

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Information based on initial details from the organizers:

This Symposium was to be in honor of the 40th Anniversary of the Patterson/Gimlin film footage shot at Bluff Creek, California on October 20, 1967.

The Symposium was to be educational in nature with a wide array of speakers and include approximately 14-16 presentations spanning the weekend of October 20/21, 2007.