Organizers of Seattle gay pride parade to disband
The volunteer group that has organized an annual Seattle gay pride celebration since 1975 says it is disbanding while another group says it hopes to continue the June parade and festival.
Seattle Out and Proud said its debt of $102,000 to the city for the 2006 event at Seattle Center, combined with volunteer fatigue, prompted the decision to cancel its 2007 plans.
"People can still be proud ... it just means we're tired," Weston Sprigg, vice president of Seattle Out and Proud, told The Seattle Times. He said the group is meeting with bankruptcy attorneys.
"It's unfortunate but we are a supportive group of people that want the best for our community and hope now that someone will step up and take the events to the next level," Sprigg said.
Each June, in cities across the country, gay communities honor the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York that marked the start of the modern gay rights movement.
Seattle's Pride celebration, which has become one of the largest in the country, traditionally included a festival at Volunteer Park and a parade along Broadway, both on Capitol Hill, in the heart of Seattle's gay community.
Organizers moved the festival to Seattle Center and the parade to downtown Seattle last year in an attempt to attract more widespread exposure and spread out a little, but they also gained $102,000 in debt and protests by some members of the gay community.
More than 200,000 people participated in the festivities last year, but the organization did not collect enough money from sponsorships and donations to cover its expenses, which were much greater at Seattle Center than on Capitol Hill.
"It's successful with attendees, it's successful visually and it's successful politically," Sprigg said. "It's just not successful financially."
Other organizations have expressed interest in saving gay pride festivities in Seattle in 2007. Stepping up to take the lead is Capitol Hill-based LGBT Community Center, which last year organized a march and music festival called Queerfest as a way to accommodate supporters who wanted to keep Pride weekend festivities on Capitol Hill.
Queerfest drew between 20,000 and 30,000 people, said Shannon Thomas, executive director of the community center.
This year, even before it learned Seattle Out and Proud might cancel Seattle Pride, the LGBT Community Center obtained a license to hold festivities June 23.
"We're sad to see their announcement but excited by what the results could be. We're figuring out a strategy for how we will become involved," Thomas said.
She expressed confidence her group could pull off an event on the scale of previous pride celebrations.
"We're committed to making sure a Pride celebration occurs," she said. "If we step up, we want to have a very viable plan in place."
Those involved in organizing Pride events in the past said a successful event costs $50,000 or so.
George Bakan, editor of the Seattle Gay News, said, "there's probably $20,000 to $30,000 that can flow from businesses in a matter of days if the community center decides to take the lead and organize a major Capitol Hill Pride day."