For the organizers of the Sedona International Film Festival, the writing was on the wall.

In early November, SIFF Executive Director Patrick Schweiss said the show must go on and that the festival was looking at offering a hybrid approach with a reduced number of live showings of films and the option of viewing them from home. But since then, the number of cases and deaths related to COVID-19 continued to rise, making it more likely that organizers of the festival — which was set for the end of February — would have it go fully virtual.

But now, Schweiss, his staff and board members feel they have found an alternative and so far, everyone is in favor.

“We’ve been concerned the last couple of weeks with the outrageously high rise in the numbers of cases from the pandemic — everywhere but particu­larly in this area,” Schweiss said. “Now is the time we’d normally put ticket pack­ages on sale and we didn’t feel confident doing that because we didn’t know what the festival could look like in February.

“We want to make every possible effort we can to keep it live for Sedona, the citizens, the businesses, our sponsors, supporters and members. The more we looked at these COVID numbers, the more we real­ized a live February festival was not in the cards.”

So, SIFF leaders made the decision to postpone the festival, with it now set for June 12 though 20.

“We decided, why not bite the bullet and delay it to a time when, God willing, we can pretty much guarantee that a live festival can take place,” he said.

Once the decision was made and approved by the SIFF board, the next question was, when? They looked at April, May and June. One of the biggest reasons the festival has taken place in late February — at least during’s Schweiss’ long tenure — is because that’s a slow economic time of the year for Sedona. And because of that, it was easier to receive donated rooms from local hotels and resorts for the filmmakers and celebrity guests. Once spring hits, tourism sees a big spike and fewer rooms are available for the festival.

On paper, Schweiss said June made sense. It’s warmer, thus allowing for more outdoor options for screenings and nightly galas. And by then he’s hopeful COVID vaccines will be available to the general public.

“The main driver is that we feel consumer confi­dence will be much higher then,” he said. “We’re hoping people will be more willing to give it a try because it won’t be as dangerous as it would be in February.”

He said neither he nor the board took the deci­sion lightly to move the festival. First off, they were concerned of the reaction they might get from their sponsors, specifically the hotels, and venues such as Harkins Theatres and the Sedona Performing Arts Center, not to mention the many others that have helped make the festival what it’s become.

“Both [venues] were not only supportive but were applauding the fact we were doing this and moved mountains to find dates that worked for us,” he said.

It wasn’t just the movie venues that were supportive of the postponement. He asked the hoteliers if they had a preference of April, May or June. The consensus was June.

“What was really heartwarming — bar none — is that every single one said, ‘Pat, do what’s best for your organization, the festival and the community, and we’ll support you no matter what,’” Schweiss said. “I called 12 of our hotel partners and that’s what they all said — that’s how beautiful and supportive this commu­nity is.”

Schweiss said with COVID numbers increasing, and the strong possi­bility that SIFF would go all-virtual, postponing or canceling the festival was the elephant in the room that no one wanted to talk about. Once he suggested postponing it a few months, it was a relief for many — especially those on the board — and the support came flooding in from vendors, spon­sors and advertisers.

“Obviously, safety is our biggest concern and the fact that we truly feel we owe it to the community and film­makers to do a live festival,” he said of the postponement. “We will still offer some of the festival virtually. But film festivals are for the communal, big-screen experience. We didn’t want to lose that and likely in February we would have.”

The plan in February was to scale back the number of films to 90, which is a third less than the normal 160. Schweiss said they will bump that back to 110 and that the films that the SIFF screeners already agreed upon for February will still be shown in June with the addition of 20 others. If seating is still limited by state mandates, in June SIFF can show those films more frequently with outdoor venues, as mentioned, as well as additional showings during the week at SPAC since school will be out. School policy prohibits the venue’s use while students are on campus during the week.

What happens if a June film festival is a hit?

“Right now our plan is to return to February because of the economic impact we have locally that time of the year,” he said of the estimated $4 million boost to the Sedona economy. “But, we are going to be open-minded to looking at what happens in June and what it looks like. We are not ruling out any possibilities.”

So far everything is falling into place. But, Schweiss was asked what the drawbacks may be in hosting a June event next year. He paused a few seconds and said, “I can’t think of any — and I have been trying to. I told people, ‘I want you to come up with every single roadblock, every nega­tive thing you can think of and throw it at me and the board.’ I said this because we were so excited about the possibility of having this that we may not have been looking at the whole picture. Nobody could think of one.”