September was a reasonably quiet month, aside from the spikes of community activity that were Calgary Pride and the AIDS Walks across Alberta.
Calgary Pride took place on the September long weekend, right at the beginning of the month. This year’s focus was inclusion of the T in LGBT. Along that vein, attendees of the Pride Dance on Friday were treated to an awesome performance by The Clicks – talented headman Lucas Silveira is a trans man.
I was certainly excited. I’m definitely a fan of their music, as was apparent from the glowing music review I wrote on their first album Snakehouse several years ago. It has been a while since I’ve listened to it, but the tunes and lyrics came back to me quite readily. I was definitely proud to see how far the group has come, and excited to witness them live for the first time.
The dance was well attended, with 350 tickets sold, according to organizers. It certainly wasn’t a male-dominated event, but that’s okay because the boys got their chance to party the next night at the much anticipated Pure PRIDE dance.
The obvious pun was that Flames Central became FlamERS Central for the night. A predominantly male crowd packed the dance floor and surrounding area solid. Those who waited till that day to buy their tickets were simply out of luck – organizers estimate they had to turn away over 700 hopeful people at the door to favour actual ticket holders. There were some fantastic onstage performances, awesome lights and visuals, and hundreds of sweaty shirtless men! I’m not much of a dancer these days, but I definitely felt the pull...I might have gotten into the fray if it weren’t for my photo duties. On the other hand, I was glad to not be hurting so much the next morning.
The Street Festival was held at Shaw Millennium Park, rather than Olympic Plaza where it has been for the past several years. While there was some resistance to the change during early discussions (as there always is), it was difficult to argue that it wasn’t a good move after seeing the outcome.
The only bearing that this change of venue had on the Parade was that it went the opposite direction along 8th Avenue. We were treated to another healthy length parade with a great variety of colourful floats and walkers – in fact, organizers estimate the parade was 50% longer than the previous year. While the Calgary Flames didn’t march as many of us had been told, their street team showed face with a vehicle in the Parade. Mayor Nenshi didn’t disappoint as parade marshal, and had supportive and encouraging words for us all when he made his speech at the Street Festival.
The weather that Sunday morning was gorgeous, and Shaw Millennium Park provided a huge open area for people to frolic in front of the stage, or sit and rest on the green grass. The vendor tents skirted the south and west edges of the park, and we certainly gave out a schwack of magazines at our booth. Of all the booths that we operate to promote the magazine at different events throughout the year, I seem to enjoy Pride’s the most – everyone is in such a happy mood and it’s easy to get into friendly conversations even with complete strangers. By the end of the day my face hurt from smiling so much, but that only made me want to smile more. Organizers estimate anywhere between 13,000 and 20,000 people came out to celebrate that day.
The new Beer Garden area at the park was a real hit. It consisted of a circular courtyard area with a spiral ramp along its back edge that made for a great viewpoint out over the park and toward the stage. Organizers were able to get this area licensed for double the number of people from last year’s beer garden, but that still wasn’t enough as there was a substantial line up to get in. It was quite a lively party out in the sun, and as if they hadn’t gotten enough from the night before, more shirtless guys!
While there’s always room for improvement, the board and volunteers of Pride Calgary Planning Committee really deserve kudos for their efforts this year, and things look even brighter for the future. For all of us at GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine, as a sponsor of Pride through thick and thin, it was very gratifying (if not a little emotional) for us to see how far they have come.
The AIDS Walks
As I’m sure we all know, AIDS Calgary and HIV Edmonton hold annual AIDS Walks in their respective cities. I spent a sunny Sunday morning the weekend of the 18th on my own in Edmonton to cover theirs. While the walkers were away, I had a chance to relax and poke around the vendor tents at Sir Winston Churchill Square, and even take some artistic photos around City Hall.
After about an hour the walkers returned and gathered on the stone steps for a very wide group shot. Us guys with cameras had to retreat nearly to the other side of the square to fit everyone in. The total was announced on stage: $116,222, a new record for the organization.
The Saturday morning of the following weekend, Steve and I made our way up to Red Deer to check out their AIDS Walk. It was our first time attending it, in fact, our first time sponsoring it too. As things were getting set up before the walk, Steve asked one of the organizers, "So do you have about a hundred people that show up?" She laughed. It’s a lot smaller than what we know from Calgary or Edmonton, plus it seemed there was so much other stuff happening that day. We practically had to plough through a busy farmer’s market to get to the park where the AIDS Walk was held. But in the end it was a beautiful day, a chance to meet people face to face and show our support.
The day after, Steve and I had a booth at Calgary’s AIDS Walk where we spent another sunny Sunday morning taking photos, enjoying performances, and cheering on walkers. Another excellent event, raising a grand total of $171,834!
Some Calgary Culture
For how busy we are, Steve and I rarely get the opportunity to see the latest productions by the many theatre groups in Calgary that we deal with. Last month however, we were invited to Media night for Theatre Calgary’s production of Tosca Café. While the production has already wrapped up as of October 2nd, I still want to say what a great job and beautiful story Theatre Calgary brought to the stage. Prior to the show, Theatre Calgary was excited to announce that they had already exceeded their expectations for season ticket sales. Our theatre-going readers should definitely check out what’s to come this season, if you haven’t already.
GayCalgary and Edmonton Magazine was proud to sponsor the Calgary International Film Festival (CIFF) again this year. We were in attendance for the opening gala movie, and the two LGBT theme movies that we sponsored. An Ordinary Family was a sweet, honest and heart-warming film. Cloudbursts was a raucous good time, with Olympia Dukakis doing an amazing job of playing an abrasive but lovable lesbian with great lines like, "If that dress were any shorter, you’d need another hair net!" If you missed them, I highly recommend you keep an eye out.