South Dakota Pride 2007 has not been canceled! Yet!

I recently put out an e-mail to only the GLBT community that we may have to cancel pride because of a lack of interest. First of all that decision has not been made nor will it be made until the Board of Directors meeting on Monday. However, we may have to cancel. Let me explain why.

When I said lack of interest it wasn't because we don't have enthusiastic dedicated people helping to put it together. We do. And they have been doing a great job. The line up for Pride has been looking great.

So what is the problem? We have a nationally known singer song writer lined up to play for the event. We have several representatives from national GLBT organizations scheduled to speak and do work shops. Expenses for the festival are approaching $3000. That is not unexpected or unreasonable. We have several vendors including food vendors who need to know that it will be worth their investment to participate. We need to know how many vendors the festival can handle without their loosing money.

Therein lies the problem. In order to justify the expenses and to give assurances to those other organizations and vendors, we need to have some idea as to how many people will be attending. I sent out an e-mail asking people to let us know if they would be attending the Pride Festival. Where they would be staying. and what they would like to see.

To date I have received confirmation from 6 people that they will be attending. I can not justify the expenses or get the vendors to participate unless we can have some confirmation that we will have an adequate attendance to make it worthwhile for them and for those of us who are putting it together.

If anyone has any ideas or suggestions as to how to rectify this situation, let me know. I don't want to cancel pride. Too many people have worked too hard to put it together. But without an adequate response from the GLBT community at large we can not continue.

Mike Coats, Director
The Center West