Sad news of an online sort: BendNights.com is closing its virtual doors. From the official announcement:

I officially announce the end of BendNights.com. After five years, I will be shutting down Bend’s original online entertainment website at 12:01am, Monday, July 19, forever.

This was a tough decision to make, but it’s time. I’ve been working in the comedy industry with my business partner Morgan Preston for a number of years and opportunities have presented themselves that I can’t pass up. Opportunities that people work their whole life for and still rarely see.

Currently, BendNights.com is at the height of its existence. Record numbers of visitors, crazing page view numbers, and insane search engine ranking. I want to be clear that this isn’t about the site falling apart or failing. Quite the opposite actually. I just can’t put any more time into it with the new turns in my life. It’s paid the rent, kept the lights on, and bought me a few pairs of shoes over the past five years… This is far from a loss. Rather it’s been a vehicle to all the great things happening to me now.

The site is going to shut down in two stages. The first will happen at 12:01am, Friday, July 16 when we take down the movie section. The final stage will take place on Monday, July 19 at 12:01am. We will take down the rest of the site, leaving one final open letter as the only page on BendNights.com, forever.

I’m definitely sorry to see this happen because I always thought BendNights.com was a good site and a good resource, and it’s too bad that nobody was able to continue on with it (there are some details about that in the blog posting).