The San Francisco LGBT Pride Celebration Committee has become, shall we say, shy when providing information about this year's event. That may be due in part to a mostly new executive team, including director Amy Andre, but we sure hope Pride is more forthcoming soon.
For nearly two months, we have asked about Pride's budget for the main stage. And we're still waiting for an answer. When Andre met with us in mid-February to introduce herself, she said she would get us that information. We have yet to receive a figure from her.
At the time, we were concerned because Pride had yet to hire a producer for the main stage, knowing that an event of the size and scope of the main stage entertainment after the parade on Sunday is a huge undertaking. We wanted to know the extent of the resources that the Pride Committee had committed to the stage, one of the largest venues in the country for stars to perform before a largely LGBT audience. And we wanted to see how the main stage budget fits in with Pride's other expenditures. Pride's budget is around $2 million.
This week, we report that longtime promoter Audrey Joseph has been re-hired as the main stage producer. After running the stage for more than 20 years, Joseph had planned to resign after last year's Pride. Instead, with only 11 weeks until this year's event and no main stage producer in sight, Pride was able to entice Joseph to sign on for the job again this year. And it's a good thing she did. If anyone can put something together on a tight deadline, we're sure that Joseph is up to the task.
But for weeks leading up to the announcement, the Pride Committee has been evasive about who was coming on board. On February 22, Andre said more information on whether a producer had been hired should be available for that week's paper. It wasn't. After that, we heard nothing about anyone being hired until this week. It's fair to state the obvious: Pride had no one lined up for the job (or had been rebuffed by people it had contacted) and turned to Joseph when it realized time was running out. That's not to knock Joseph, who is widely praised as one of the best promoters around. On the contrary, at this late date, Joseph is probably the only person who has the experience and extensive contacts to pull together a stellar entertainment lineup.
We took a brief trip down memory lane last week, looking at old Pride materials in the archives at the GLBT Historical Society. Suffice it to say, controversies about secrecy and the Pride board were part of the community fabric back then too. In 1980, for example, there were community meetings about the organization and charges of secret meetings. People also were angry at bylaw changes.
In recent years, the leadership of Pride has become more withdrawn. Since organizers know hundreds of thousands of people will converge on the city that last Sunday in June, maybe they don't think they need to be responsive to the media and public at large. But that misses the point of what being a grassroots organization is all about. It's about creating a sense of community. Many people credit Pride events with being able to finally exit the closet or where they met a partner or good friend. In other words, a lot of LGBTs have a deep connection to Pride.
Any time there is a large-scale event such as the Pride Parade, organizers aren't going to be able to please everyone. There will always be criticism. One way to counter that is for officials to be open and communicative with the public. Our community leaders should realize they gain far more than they lose by being transparent and accountable.