Ooops. Ahhh, goddamit...

There exist substantial downsides to being a responsible member of a community and having occasionally assumed a leadership role in the past. That said...

BiggerCity Pride Historic Organizers of Pride (BC-HOP) in 2004 got tired, and handed over the reigns and just about 30k to BiggerCity Bright Shiny (BC-BS) with the instructions go forth and do an annual Pride Event. Historically, this meant a parade with 100k or so in attendance meandering up for a sunny afternoon in Memorial Park and at the end of the day...the parader's were paraded, food booths had sold food, merchandise vendors had merchandised, community organizations had gotten their annual big grab at community wallet and attention span, educators had educated, entertainers had entertained, and speakers had spoken - and there would be about 30k left over to distribute to good causes and set aside as seed money for the subsequent years event. All good.

In 2005, BC-BS threw a heck of an event in the historic model with major sponsorship from brewers, software makers, and sundry others - good attendance and all appeared well. In 2006, umm...

In 2006, BC-BS insisted the event had outgrown the parade route and Memorial Park - that it was unsafe, and needed to be moved downtown to where all the other really big important parades occurred and proceed out to BiggerCity Big Event Lovely Location (BC-BELL) - over much screaming from traditionalists, sentimentalists, and many businesses (including the bars, for whom Pride weekend is the single largest revenue producing weekend in a year), this change occurred.

The parade was moved to downtown BiggerCity, and the festival out to BC-BELL, and in fact the attendees had a splendid time and I'm told the event was quite high-spirited and cheery.

We are now in February of 2007 with BiggerCity announcing that due to breach of contract (owing over 100k in fees for BC-BELL alone, rumors of deposits never returned, and vendors never paid) that the city was canceling the contract with BC-BS and revoking the date reservations at BC-BELL. Yeargh.

BC-BS's credibility pretty well trashed, and it seeming a tad unfair that a bunch of community organizations be torpedoed fiscally for BC-BS's sins, a bunch of us best described as unwilling has-beens and spirited newbies are jumping in to pull a smaller event together along the historic model..and do in 3 months what normally takes 9.

And I'm starting work tomorrow...

If it's not raining, it's pouring. **grouse**