The 2010 Festival in Lee Park. This year, the park will be fenced and parade organizers will charge a $5 admission to help offset rising costs, Dallas Tavern Guild Executive Director Michael Doughman confirmed today. (Chuck Dube/Dallas Voice)
I just got off the phone with Dallas Tavern Guild Executive Director Michael Doughman, who confirmed for me rumors that there will, indeed, be an admission fee to the Pride Festival in Lee Park this year after the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade in September. Admission to the parade will still be free.
Doughman said the park will be fenced in for the festival, and there will be a $5 charge to enter the park for the event that traditionally winds up Dallas’ LGBT Pride celebration. This and other changes were prompted, he said, by changes in requirements imposed by the city and by “polite warnings” from Dallas police and the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission that drinking during the event was getting seriously out of hand. But Doughman also acknowledged that the admission fee is intended to increase revenue, too.
“Being able to donate proceeds back to our beneficiary organizations has always been a major focus of the parade. But ever since the Homeland Security Act passed after 9/11, and the security requirements have gone up, the money we are able to donate back to our beneficiaries has been dwindling,” Doughman said. “We used to be able to donate $20,000 to $25,000, and we had three or four beneficiaries. Now, we’re lucky if we have $7,500 or $8,000 to give back to our one beneficiary [Youth First Texas].”
Doughman the other main reason for fencing in the park and charging admission is to give parade organizers better control over the crowd. That’s the same reason the Tavern Guild has chosen this year to prohibit event participants from bringing in coolers and outside alcohol. Glass containers of all kinds are also banned.
“The last two or three years, it’s gotten really bad” in terms of celebration attendees drinking to excess and ending up being a danger to themselves and others, Doughman said. “The Dallas police officers have been very kind about the way they have handled it, but we have been warned by the police and by TABC, and we had to be proactive in doing something to address the issue. It is a huge liability for us.”
He said that even though hard liquor has always been prohibited, attendees have become more brazen about ignoring that ban. “That’s a licensing issue. We only have a license for beer at the celebration, no hard liquor. If TABC were to do a sweep through there and find hard liquor, then we would be liable. They would take away our license and the city would never give us another permit for the parade or the celebration. That would be the end of Dallas Pride,” Doughman said.
Doughman said the last thing organizers want to do is take all the fun out of the annual Pride celebration, and said that those who pay the $5 fee to attend the celebration in the park will get to see “bigger-name entertainment” than in past years, as well as have access to improved food service.
“We don’t want to take the fun out of things, but we have to do what we have to do to make sure this is a safe event and to make sure that we follow the rules and make enough money to pay our costs and still have money for our beneficiary,” Doughman said.
Watch for a full story in Friday’s issue of Dallas Voice. Applications for the 2011 Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade and Festival in Lee Park are available online at the Dallas Tavern Guild website.
Boooo! TABC has too much control. I don’t mind paying $5 if it’s going back in to our community.
Again the many have to suffer because of the few! Love the catch all mentality. Improved food service? Code for we will have a captive aduance. So we can charge a premium for food and drink. Sounds like another good reason to go home after the parade. Wonder how long before the prime viewing spots along the parade route are roped off and admission is charged? Of course it will be for our own good.
Now the park will become another profit center or the Tavern Guild. Not that they make enough cash from the massive crowds at their bars during pride. The no-cooler ruling may be couched as security but it’s about cash. Sell drinks, make money, plain and simple.
Really money hogs? We dont need food vendors as most of us bring coolers, and we diff. dont need a $5 cover charge. Does any other city do this, I think not. Get your greedy hands out of the pot and just have fun! If you follow through with this, you are taking the fun out of the whole event. Bad Idea from a greedy few.
This will cut back on people attending. They have their own parties elsewhere.
I hope the “bigger names” will be unique to the park for the weekend to keep it special. I also hope there is a continued support for local GLBT musicians like there has been for years.
Did ANYONE know hard liquor was banned? I sure didn’t.
Again go after the ones breaking the rules and the law. Don’t make the majority suffer.
It’s Texas, so the public consumption of liquor was kind of an open secret, and everyone looked the other way. These changes are a crass commercialization of a community event under the pretext of safety. There are ways to raise money other than caging us all in and forcing us to buy food and drinks from vendors. We need to stand up to the Guild and tell them that this is a bad idea for the community and the future of Dallas Pride.
$5 will get me two beers at Zippers following the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade……..
Pride should always be free. Charging alienates members of our community less financially affluent. Students, single parents, the unemployed etc. Pride is about bringing all of our community together not alienating parts. Dallas greed at it’s best.
Honey Badger don’t want no $5 admission and certainly no $5 beer. Honey Badger won’t attend and wont give a shiattttttt!!!!!!!!!
So, the very group that is supposed to benefit from this (Youth First Texas) will not be able to attend (since the event is a charged event for those over 21)?
No where in the article does it say that under 21 will not be allowed to attend. I’m sure it will be like any other outdoor festival and the vendors will card. I don’t think $5 is such a big deal when it benefits others.
Unbelievable. I really dont even know how to express how utterly ridiculous this is. I haven’t missed a single one of these festivals in ten years. But hey, Tavern Guild, RSVP’ing ahead to let you know I will NOT be attending this year.
Show the Dallas Tavern Guild how you feel. Skip the Dallas Pride Picnic and come over to Ft Worth for the Pride Picnic in October.
Oh good LORD people! Dallas is so friggin spoiled when it comes to not paying cover charges. As a gay comedian, I have performed at Pride Events all over the U.S. and I can assure you that the larger city events have admission charges for their festivals. I fully support this decision by the Tavern Guild. Now maybe they can afford to bring in some bigger name performers in the future.
I have lived in the Oaklawn area for over 25 years and I can tell you when the parade was first started it was about being proud of who you were and having a love for your fellow man but I have noticed over the years that the tavern guild has turned it into one big profit I meen honestly why do the drink prices have to almost double just because it is pride weekend answer they don’t it is just some asshole who owns one of the bars trying to rip off people going to the parade and they do it for every other special event as well the halloween block party prices go up new years the prices go up and they charge outrageous covers and how much of this so called benefit money comes out of their pockets but then you see things like the Roundup raised blah blah blah amount of money for this charity or that charity but tell me who did they get that money from the public around them it didn’t come from their profits it came from people like you and me in 1999 I worked for one of the Caven clubs and they had a little box mounted on the wall where people could donate money for the food pantry and I can’t began to tell you the number of times i watched the managers take money out of that box to make change and then never put the money back in it if this is the way we are supposed to support the gay community then it is sad to say i am ashamed to be gay and want no part of a community that takes advantage of the very people who supported it all these years
Think that roping off the prime spots along the parade route could never happen? Think again. It happened this year at the Ft Worth Stock Show Parade. Prime spots were roped off with chairs set up and tickets were sold to sit in them. So charging to get into the park is just the start.
Bad idea, plain and simple, for all the reasons expressed above. Really, $5 is not very much, but it will keep many people away only on principle. I’ve never missed the celebration in the park, but will this year. I doubt they will have it again next year after they see what a disaster it will be this year. I thought one of the stereotypes of gay people is that we are creative. What happened to the creativity when it came to ideas about how to raise the extra needed money? On a side note, I also doubt the parade will continue in the Oak Lawn area very much longer since the “gayborhood” is no longer a “gayborhood” with the majority of residents no longer being gay. Everyone in the know, knows that Bishop Arts District is the new “gayborhood”.
I don’t mind paying $5.00 if it’s going back to the community and possibly helping out the Tavern Guild with projects in Oak Lawn. I do have a problem if it’s going to the businesses. I would like to see the prices of drinks and food published before paying 5.00 to get in. If we’re going to get raped at this function like we do at a Rangers or Cowboys Game, I’ll just stay home and have my own pride party.
It’s not just the $5 that concerns me. The rule changes that disallow coolers to be brought in impact those who work at a booth. Also, I can’t imagine the impact that a fence all around the park will have on movement of people. It’s a TERRIBLE idea and I believe I will recommend that our organization not participate this year.
It’s a great idea. I wish it would have happened sooner. I reread the article and the negative comments above seem extreme and unfounded.
There is always the grassy knoll across the street from lee park! no one mentioned roping that off! enjoy your coolers over there!