St. Petersburg — St. Petersburg’s LGBT community has been overrun by questions, concerns and rumors ever since it was announced that Georgie’s Alibi was closing its doors. For 15 years, Georgie’s was a tent pole for the community, whether it involved charities and fundraisers or celebrations and events.
One such event that utilized Georgie’s Alibi and the surrounding areas was St. Pete Pride. St. Pete Pride is the largest Pride event in the state of Florida and routinely has more than 100,000 supporters line the streets for the parade, concerts and a street festival the last weekend of June.
With the uncertainty of where St. Pete Pride will be held now that the previous staging area is no longer an option – Georgie’s closed on Sept. 19 – comments have popped up on social media asking for answers and calling the transparency of St. Pete Pride into question. That’s something St. Pete Pride executive director Eric Skains says is not and has never been an issue.
“Everything we talk about from our meetings is available on our website, where and when our meetings are,” Skains says. “We have really good relationships with all of our sponsors and the city officials. They are all aware of what is going on with St. Pete Pride and how things are functioning, so I think we have done a pretty good job as far as our transparency.”
Skains says that he does all he can to make sure information about Pride is made available as soon as decisions are made, and he is proud of the image St. Pete Pride carries.
“We do the best that we can with the tools that we have,” Skains says. “There is a very small percentage of non-profit organizations that receive a gold-star rating with [non-profit ratings resource] Guidestar, and we are one of them.”
Skains says since they do not have access to the staging area that they used in the past, they have narrowed the future location down to two options.
“One location is in the traditional Kenwood neighborhood and Grand Central. The other is in downtown St. Petersburg,” Skains says. “Each has their pros and their cons. It’s what best fits as far as the line-up and the staging area is concerned. Parking is also a huge concern, and that will weigh in heavily.”
Downtown has a lot to offer with 25,000 parking spaces, more streets available to view the parade and shade is in abundance.
Watermark reached out to Grand Central about the potential of losing St. Pete Pride to the Downtown district. As of press time, no comment was received.
Skains says they will be discussing those options with the city, and he hopes to have an answer to where St. Pete Pride will be by mid-December.
Skains went on to say that there are pros and cons to both locations, but that money and sponsors are not going to be the deciding factor, and regardless of where they are in 2016 that they will still be one of the most affordable Pride events for those local businesses wanting to be a part of it.
“For lack of a better term, I take a lot of pride in the fact we are the largest Pride in Florida and we are also the most affordable for the size that we are,” Skains says.
A non-profit can participate in St. Pete Pride’s festival for $100 and local artists pay $50 to showcase their art and that’s a policy Skains says he has always held on to.
“This is something we do: making sure our community comes first,” Skains says.“Small businesses, that’s who we cater to. Yeah, a lot of corporate dollars help offset that. If you look at the per booth space and what it costs us, it’s approximately $350 per booth space. That’s what it costs us, and we are selling them for $200, so we have to make that up somehow.”
Prides in general are experiencing an evolution, and some feel they are getting a mixed message that they aren’t really a part of this process anymore, and the young blood is moving in. Something Skains says he is aware of those messages with regard to St. Pete Pride, but that Pride is not alone in the public scrutiny.
“I don’t think that is just a Pride thing, I think that is just the reality of the world we live in,” he says. “You look at each generation and each one is vastly different how they like to receive information, how they want things to run and how they see these events. The largest part of the population right now is the millennials, and this generation is our future, so that’s something we have to keep in mind. But at the same time, we don’t forget about those who got us to where we are. But everyone needs to understand that not everyone accepts things the same way, and you can’t make everyone happy. I think everyone needs to evolve; organizations, non-profits and even, I think, events as far as how they deliver a message. I think we try our best to deliver that message to everybody.”
So, in a post same-sex marriage society, what is the message Pride is trying to send now, and what role do Prides play?
“Every LGBT organization is now facing that question,” Skains says.“There are still a lot of issues that we still face beyond marriage. It was definitely the biggest talking point of the LGBT community and the biggest source of funding for a lot. You see this with chambers to film festivals to bars and clubs and even Pride events. I think it comes down to who we’re celebrating. Our tagline is ‘Come celebrate the power and beauty of diversity, regardless of what that is to you.’ We aren’t a political organization; we don’t fight for legislation. We fight for equality on the street level, but we’re also a platform for people to share what’s going on in their communities.”
So what is it that Pride can bring to the format that would make it more relevant to today?
“Prides all over the world kind of have a shared mission and that’s [to] commemorate, liberate and celebrate,” Skains says.“I think over the next several years we will see a lot more of the focus on the commemorate part. I think we have got the celebration part down, and we provide the platform for the liberation aspect, but how it evolves only time will tell. Some people say that Pride events all over the world are becoming much more mainstream, but I think mainstream is the turning of the tide for our community, because I think a lot of LGBT people say it’s time for us to be mainstream.”
