Blogger’s note: Since I began writing this post, the protest effort has morphed into planning for an alternative e Pride called Roots Pride Pittsburgh.
If you missed it, there is a great post over at Pittsburgh Lesbian Correspondents, about the Delta Foundation’s finances. I’d encourage you to check it out. The author paints a clear picture of how the supposed goals of the group and their activities don’t seem to be aligned.
I want to highlight another comment Delta’s Chris Bryan made in the Recent Post Gazette article as well as draw attention to why this is so important. So, keep this frame of reference, which I’ll comment on it more later in this post:
Delta’s annual 10-day Pittsburgh Pride, which drew more than 100,000 last year as the largest LGBT celebration in Western Pennsylvania.
But here’s the real slick comment by Delta’s spin queen:
“There’s a group of people who don’t agree with the performer. It happens every year. We can’t bring in someone to please everyone but we do our best.”
It is true, that every year, if you follow the Delta Facebook page, you will find a few dozen folks who aren’t thrilled with the chosen performer. Usually these are younger folks or women, for whom a performer like diva Chaka Kahn or Patti LaBelle seem too old fashioned. (as a middle aged gay who came in to my own during the disco ’70’s I disagree, but that’s beside the point.) Bryan is right that not everyone will be thrilled. But disinterest in the entertainer leads to fewer in attendance, and last year was a prime example. The 100,000 figure is only an estimate, is from a variety of events over the course of more than a week. This number is most reflective of the PrideFest event on Sunday, which is free and open to the general public. PrideFest brings a large LGBTQA attendance and many folks who are at the Arts Festival also move through the PrideFest. The Pride in the Street event, which is at the heart of this controversy is significantly smaller, although no exact ticket sales numbers are released.
Contrast a few dozen folks who whine on Facebook, to the number of people who claim to be attending this year’s protest event. In fact there are possibly more people attending the protest, than attending the Iggy Azalea concert! This doesn’t happen every year, no matter what Delta says, and the fact that Delta won’t see that is an illustration of how blind to the actual LGBTQ community in Pittsburgh.
Truly the number of people who select “join” for a Facebook event is far from exact, but so is the 100,000 figure that Delta likes to cite while they never speak about actual ticket sales for the Pride in the Street event.