The way Judy Billings sees it, downtown Lawrence is just a film festival waiting to happen.

After all, the area has most of the main ingredients to attract a crowd of film producers, actors and aficionados — plenty of bars for late-night revelry, multiple coffee houses for early-morning remedies and a handful of unique theaters for movie viewing.

Billings, director of the Lawrence Convention and Visitors Bureau, has been working with Adam Bauer, a former Kansas resident and now a New York talent promoter with ties to the independent film industry.

“I’ve thought for awhile that downtown Lawrence would be perfect for this sort of thing,” Billings said. “I showed Adam the venues and he became very excited.”

Billings said she was hoping for an event — tentatively dubbed the Sunflower Film Festival — that would attract a couple thousand people to town by showing films in Liberty Hall, the Lawrence Arts Center, the Granada and the Lied Center. Downtown bars, restaurants and coffee houses could serve as venues for lectures and workshops.

Bauer, who helped stage the first Vail Film Festival in Colorado last year, said he thought Lawrence could organize a high quality event that would screen about 10 feature films, 15 short films and five documentaries or animated works.

“It seems like Lawrence has the perfect demographic,” Bauer said. “It has the culture of the students and the film school, and it has a nice population in Kansas City to draw from. I think it could really work.”

What the city hasn’t had thus far is an accommodating calendar. Billings said finding a suitable date for the festival has been challenging. The event, envisioned to last three to four days, needs to fit in well with the schedules of film makers, meaning it can’t compete with other festivals, contests or award shows. Plus, because participants likely would walk from venue to venue, the weather is a consideration. And the event needs to happen during a weekend when hotel space is available, which rules out many weekends that include a Kansas University athletic event, Billings said.

“We really have everything that it takes, except for a really good date,” Billings said.

Aaron Emerson, a projectionist at Liberty Hall, spools up the film Sideways for an afternoon showing Friday. Efforts are under way to start an independent film festival in Lawrence. Liberty Hall, 642 Mass., would be one of the venues.

Money also could become an issue. Billings said supporters likely would need to raise $150,000 to host a quality event. She said fund raising can’t begin in earnest until a date has been set.

“Right now we’re not getting anywhere, but we haven’t given up on the idea,” Billings said.

Chuck Berg, chairman of KU’s department of theater and film, urges Billings to keep working on the idea. He said he believed the film industry would enjoy making Lawrence a regular stop if given the opportunity.

“I think what Lawrence has going for it is a reputation, not only in the Midwest but nationally, as an archetypal, hip college town,” Berg said. “My experience has been that people who come here from either coast or overseas invariably have a good time in Lawrence. They just love how open and creative we are.”

Potential festival participants also are hoping efforts to start the event continue. Rob Fitzgerald manages Liberty Hall’s cinema operations.

“We have a great film-going public in Lawrence,” Fitzgerald said. “I think the local folks would really come out and support it. The key would be to figure out a way to get people from out of town to come in.”

Berg said Lawrence would need to be patient in its quest to become a player in the film festival world.

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“We’re going to have to have a strong dose of realism in terms of scale and scope,” Berg said. “Unless there is an angel out there willing to drop big bucks on it, we’re going to have to start at a fairly modest level.”

But film festivals occasionally have been known to become big business. The Sundance Film Festival stretches over a 10-day period and attracts thousands of people and worldwide media attention to the roughly 4,000 person ski-resort town of Park City, Utah. But the festival also has the backing of its high-profile founder, screen icon Robert Redford.

Even if a Lawrence festival never grows to the size of Sundance, Billings said, the event could be plenty worthwhile for the community. The festival would fill hotel rooms and restaurants, and also could produce longer-term benefits.

“It sets you up as a film destination,” Billings said. “Filmmakers might find Lawrence as a more attractive place to shoot a movie. Plus, the movie industry is intriguing to a lot of folks. It could bring some nice attention to us.”