Wednesday, April 25, 2007

SOAP - somewhere around the U bend of the toilet

Seattle Out And Proud was a group of people who organized the 2006 Seattle Pride rally and moved the parade from the traditional Capital Hill route ending at Volunteer Park to downtown Seattle ending at the Seattle Center.

There was much back biting, boycotting and controversy over the move last year and now, with a short six weeks before the event, SOAP calls it quits.

Seattle Pride Files For Bankruptcy

For 32 years the festival was held on Capitol Hill, the center of Seattle's gay community. But with crowds exceeding 200,000 the decision was made last year to move to Seattle Center.

That raised the cost and Out and Proud still owes the city more than $102,000 for last year.


So now SOAP has scrapped the idea of a end-of-parade festival (and no wonder with booth fees in excess of $1500) and just have a parade, once again downtown. Registration fees for participating in the parade have tripled since last year.

It looks like the Seattle LGBT Community Center will again host "QueerFest" at Volunteer park on June 23rd. But details are sketchy on if they will also host a parade on Broadway.

The back and forth decision making by SOAP, I will even go so far as to say "flip flopping" has caused quite a stir and much confusion in the LGBT community in Seattle. First the parade and festival is going to happen, next they are declaring bankruptcy and so there won't be a parade, then, as of this AM at least, its back to having a parade but no festival.

Organizers vow to keep gay-pride parade going

The all-volunteer organizing group of the Seattle Pride celebration Tuesday night decided to go ahead with plans to stage the parade along Fourth Avenue downtown, but scrap the festival that traditionally has followed.

The vote by the board of Seattle Out and Proud came only hours after the group -- staggering under $102,000 in debt to the city of Seattle from last year's event -- announced it would cancel both the parade and festival planned for June 24, file for bankruptcy and dissolve.

Troy Campbell, a board member and spokesman for the group, said an outpouring of support from the community persuaded the board to change directions.

How many times are they going to change directions? Hard to say. I hope they pull it off this year and have a successful event (and actually plan well enough to pay all of their bills).

Labels: ,