Results tagged “seattlepride”

Tonight is the fourth Ignite Seattle tech event and since the two previous ones that we attended were so mind-explodingly great, we recommend it without reservation. Lots of drunk technology guys and entrepreneurs will be mixing with each other and taking in the super short presentations that super smart people are scheduled to give.

It's fantastic that Rev. Hutcherson's pro-discrimination ballot initiative died a sad, lonely death recently. The fortunes of domestic partnerships in our state are on the rise, Democratic Presidential candidates seem to have their gay houses more or less in order and Seattle Pride just wrapped up its second go-round Downtown. Things seem to be looking up, but Seattlest likes to judge which way the wind blows by figuring out where the money goes. The local money is in Redmond. Er, Medina... Meaning Bill Gates has it. And he's investing it in PlanetOut to the tune of $26.2 million via his private investment firm Cascade Investment LLC.

A meeting was held today between rival Seattle Pride factions and after last year's fancy, new and successful Downtown Pride we assumed that the result of this meeting would be the announcement of this year's fancy, new-ish and (financially) successful Downtown Pride. Despite the money problems that Seattle Out and Proud, the organizers of last year's events, have run into since then--they own Seattle Center a hundred grand--and despite the on-again, off-again stutter steps of this year's events, we were relatively confident that something would be worked out.

After many on again, off again mis-starts Seattle Out and Proud is abdicating responsibility for Pride festivities this year, as expected.

That giant snapping sound you heard this week was the gay and lesbian community splitting in two over the proper way to celebrate Pride Weekend in Seattle. On the one hand the festivities, particularly the Running of the Gays, have gotten too large for Capitol Hill. We have a sense that the phrase "too many straight people" belongs in that last sentence somewhere. On the other hand, there’s a strong feeling that the proper place for Pride events is the Hill and only the Hill. What to do, what to do...

We know it's still February and the Pride Parade isn't until June, but an event like that takes a lot of planning. There's a lot of organizing to do before you even start planning, and then you can't really organize until you get the volunteers together to meet each other, preferably over drinks. Come to think of it, you may have to meet four or five times over drinks to get everyone comfortable with each other and to develop a good team environment.

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