An economic forum gets under way today at the Bates Mill.

LEWISTON – Mike Miclon was standing in Bates Mill No. 1 Wednesday taking in the scene.

Workers from Transformit, a Gorham-based textile company that creates fabric structures to define space, were stretching fantastic, amoeba-shaped fabric above a stage to reflect sound waves and form a three-dimensional canopy.

Across the room, large panels of diaphanous silk screens from Bates Manufacturing Co. were suspended in front of the mill’s windows. Sunlight poured through them, creating a playful filigree between the transparent and verdigris sections of the silk.

Miclon was impressed. The Buckfield comic and Oddfellow Theater owner will be emcee of the statewide economic development conference taking place at the mill today and Friday.

Miclon was in the mill checking out the setting, getting in the zone. After all, an audience of economic developers, businesspeople and policymakers isn’t his typical audience.

“But we’ll have fun,” he promised.

The idea of the conference was born last year when Gov. John Baldacci decided to explore bolstering the state’s economy through a focus on creativity and innovation. It’s based on a theory that businesses that rely on the creative process – artists, software developers, architects, engineers – attract more people and investment to an area and are worth fostering through public policy. Research that will be presented at the conference pegs Maine’s existing creative workforce at about 10 percent of the working population, earning about 15 percent of the wages. In numbers, that’s 63,000 workers and $2.5 billion in paychecks.

The conference has been sold out for more than a week. More than 600 attendees who ponied up between $65 and $85 apiece are expecting to walk away Friday night with the tools and ideas to help develop creative-based businesses in their communities. As of Tuesday, conference coordinator Laura Davis of Auburn’s Rinck Advertising had a waiting list of 150 more.

“It’s just taken off,” she said.

Scores of volunteers have been laboring to make the mill ready for conferees. Dozens of businesses have offered staff or expertise. A budget of $255,000 was set last fall, including $61,000 in Maine Arts Commission staff time, $20,000 in grants, $107,000 in fund-raising, $48,000 in in-kind donations and $34,000 from registration fees.

Three floors of Bates Mill have been converted into conference space. Meeting rooms have been created from the vacuous, open mill space by Transformit’s curvy fabric panels. Art hangs from the rafters. People with clipboards and cell phones have been scurrying around, setting up displays. Mill personnel have been meeting with the fire marshal one last time.

Davis, like Miclon, takes it all in.

“I think we’ll be ready,” she said.

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