Short Circuit

Increasingly popular "circuit parties" mean big business—and to some, the end of an era

by Sarah Friesema

Lesbians are flocking to swanky, all-women parties all over the country as never before. They are traveling from their home towns, taking rooms in fancy hotels, and partying all weekend—and a whole new breed of promoters and corporate sponsors are more willing than ever to cater to them. For some, the rise of circuit parties for lesbians is a positive sign that lesbians are integrating into mainstream America; women have more money to spend on their own recreation, straight resorts are going lavender for the weekend, and national corporations are courting lesbian dollars at openly dyke events. Everybody else got their Spring Break, why shouldn't gay women?

Others have their doubts. It's not just the drinking and cruising—although gay men's circuit parties have been hit hard recently by critics who accuse them of encouraging drug use and unsafe sex. It's the shift in emphasis from the grassroots to the mainline, from politics to party chicks. With 20,000 lesbians descending on Palm Springs for its annual Dinah Shore Weekend, what does it mean to the community that our largest gatherings are now in four-star hotels, pool parties, and discos?

The biggest lesbian party on earth

The parties surrounding the Dinah Shore Weekend, which happens each year the last week of March, are still the largest. But in big cities and resort towns all over the United States, parties are springing up in conjunction with Pride celebrations and national holidays. Scenesters have their choice of Aspen's Gay Ski Week, Provincetown's Women's Week, WomenFest Key West, Monterey Women's Weekend, and many others.

WomenFest Key West is a week-long event timed in conjunction with Labor Day, complete with day events and parties hosted by a number of local bars. Organizer Jacqueline Harrington says her events also include "wine tasting, comedy, water sports like snorkeling, a street fair, [and] sunset cruises." Harrington has been single-handedly producing the week since 1993, when, she says, "I was getting over a breakup, friends were taking me out to cheer me up, and I started thinking that women should be receiving this sort of treatment on a larger scale." She spent an afternoon sitting with a friend outside a bar, asking passing women where they were from, offering maps of Key West, and came up with the idea of hosting a festival in her own town. The first year, there were 500 participants; by 1999 the crowd grew to 11,000—one third the population of Key West. Even now, says Harrington, "the purpose of WomenFest Key West is to get me dates with women."

Provincetown, Massachusetts, which is known as a year-round gay and lesbian vacation spot, hosts a Women's Week in October, with women-only hotels hosting the gals, and dance parties at a number of venues. Provincetown's chamber of commerce reports that they expect at least 10,000 women this year for the festivities. Promoters estimate that the 2,000-person Aspen Gay Ski Week crowd has a very small percentage of women, but the Monterey Women's Weekend on Labor Day (known to some as "the Dinah of the North") draws around 2,000 women to its live music, pool, and evening dance parties.

Still, it is the Dinah Shore Weekend—which traces its origins to a celebrity in a golf skirt, a small Republican resort town, and a dedicated cadre of Ladies Professional Golf Association fans—is now, without a doubt, the biggest lesbian party on earth. It all began in the 1970s, when the singer and television personality Dinah Shore retired to Palm Springs and spent her leisure hours working on her golf game. To attract more money for professional women golfers—who at the time competed for a purse that was a mere fraction of the men's—Shore teamed up with Colgate as a sponsor in 1972 for the Colgate Dinah Shore Professional Women's Golf Tournament. She lent her own charm to the tournament, even jumping into the pond at the end of the game. As one of the few sports in which women could compete on a professional level, golf had a strong dyke following; parties among the lesbians who went to Dinah's tourney sprung up every year.

According to C. J. Pino, who now works in Palm Spring's tourism office, the first large party was in 1988, at the women-only hotel, the Smoke Tree Village. It was organized by a small group of local women, followed the golf tournament, and was attended by a few hundred women including, says Pino, "some out-of-towners. We had a singer, too, and did it for three years before the big promoters came." As the parties grew, their reputation did also. At the early parties, women reportedly had to park a mile away from the party and walk through mud to get there. There were about 2,000 women going to two open bars.

Mariah Hanson, who has been coproducing the largest events during Dinah for nine years, wanted to change all that. "Originally," Hanson says, "it was all about golf. But someone threw a cocktail party, the next year it was larger, the next year it got even bigger." Eventually Hanson teamed up with Sandy Sachs and Robin Gans, who run Girl Bar in Los Angeles. The trio booked blocks of hotel rooms and ballrooms of hotels, which could accom-modate far more women. They even made sure that lesbian guests were treated right by holding training sessions for hotel staff—"mostly common sense stuff," according to Doubletree Hotel manager Joseph Parks, "so that my staff will be prepared for the women who attend and won't be too surprised by what they see." The Girl Bar/Club Skirts promoters now throw four evening dances, two pool gatherings, and host almost 1,500 women during the notorious "Splash" pool party alone.

In Palm Springs, the gay men's "White Party" was a parallel development of sorts. Just as the lesbian parties were getting more organized, Jeffrey Sanker, a major promoters of circuit parties for men, became interested in what was happening in the desert. "I saw that the girls' parties were going on," says Sanker, "and invited Sandy Sachs to do a Friday party at the Marquee Hotel while I did the Saturday party." Sachs watched Sanker draw 600 men to the hotel, and decided that she could do a similar party for women. The promoters inspired and helped publicize each other's events, and for many years they were held the same weekend. Eventually they became simply too large, and the White Party—which currently draws up to 30,000 gay men to Palm Springs—now happens on the weekend following Dinah.

The big business of fun

Comedienne Michelle Balan, who has performed at Dinah Shore as well as more grassroots festivals such as the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, comments that Michigan was "another time, when a big group of lesbians had to hide out in the woods, since no one was going to let them take over a big hotel."

Now, major resorts are increasingly happy for the business. For the 1999 Dinah weekend, the Doubletree Resort rented 170 double rooms to women attending the parties at $149 to $159 a night for two or three nights. The other hotel sponsoring the Club Skirts/Girl Bar parties, the Desert Riviera Resort, reported that the entire hotel went to women who paid special rates for the weekend—a total of nearly 500 rooms. On a smaller level, the owner of the women-only Bee Charmer Inn says that the whole month is "an incredible boom, with women coming from all over;" her entire hotel is booked already for Dinah in the year 2000. The Palm Springs International Convention and Visitors Board estimates that the 20,000 women who visit that weekend spend about $250 per person per day, which adds up to a whopping $5 million coming into city busi-nesses every year.

The parties at Dinah are not cheap. Club Skirts/ Girl Bar's White Party costs $40 at the door. (Week-enders also have the option of an $85 pass to all six of the promoters' parties.) N2 the Nite, a newcomer to Palm Springs this year, charged from $28.50 for bleacher seats to $50 for VIP tickets to their evening events, which included performances by Wynonna Judd and a troop of lesbian comediennes. WomenFest Key West events are á la carte; tickets range from $10 to $30. (The men's White Party Weekend is significantly more costly; Sanker charges his guests $250 for six parties.)

Corporate sponsorships from the likes of Captain Morgan rum and Absolut vodka allow a moderately popular party to grow into a laser light and big-name DJ event. Harrington has Absolut vodka as a sponsor this year and has had Coors as a sponsor in the past. ("They gave away free beer in baseball bat-shaped bottles, which people liked," she says, "but every other person gave me a hard time about taking money from Coors." She hasn't worked with them since.) Key West kicks in "bed tax" revenue of as much as $25,000, which Harrington uses to advertise her event nationally. Harrington claims to have won the first major corporate sponsorship of a gay event for WomenFest Key West, and has been so successful in attracting sponsors that she now lends her expertise to other groups as a consultant.

Club Skirts/Girl Bar features its sponsors prominently, projecting logo images onto the walls of the hotel ballrooms where the dance parties take place. Huge balloons in the shapes of bottles promote the alcohol sponsors—and no doubt help boost the liquor sales. Hanson does admit that she couldn't make money without sponsorships, which vary according to the sponsor's visibility and exclusivity at the bar, but average about $25,000.

And oh, the bar. The Doubletree Resort reported $30,000 spent on liquor over the 1999 weekend at their hotel alone.

It may seem like Harrington and her peers are raking it in. But making a living as a party promoter is more difficult than it sounds. Many have come and gone from Palm Springs, including Krazy Horse Productions, Maverick Productions, and Odyssey Adventures. In Key West, Harrington claims she's lucky to break even. Undoubtedly, the events are expensive to produce. Sachs of Girl Bar/Club Skirts reports that her events have brought in "six figures" in recent years; however, she also says that advertising accounts for 50 percent of their expenses, and the other half goes into production.

Fight for our right to party

The history of the Dinah Shore golf tournament and subsequent parties is a lesson in the home-grown expanding to the level of professional productions.

"These women's gatherings have gone from a movement to an industry," states Robin Tyler, who was involved in the early years of the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival, went on to produce the West Coast Women's Music Festival and the Southern Women's Music and Comedy Festival, and is now preparing to produce the main stage at the March on Washington in the year 2000. She had her own conflicts with festival culture—the collective decision-making process was dangerously slow in an emergency, for example. She likes the fact that the circuit parties are "up front about being private businesses," whereas Michigan "operates [under] a myth of collectivity."

But overall, Tyler laments the fact that "there is no sense of community-building, unity, struggle, and responsibility [in the circuit party scene], as there always has been at the music festivals. Festivals united people." Tyler points out that Michigan started as a political movement. The gatherings were linked to the women's movement in general, they were a "proving ground" for young political organizers, and they were the expression—in song—for early dreams about lesbian freedom and community. Tyler points out that the rights that women were struggling for in the early years of the women's music festivals—freedom from discrimination in employment in private industry, government, and the military; sexual empowerment and autonomy; custody rights, for example—still have not been won.

Nevertheless, says Tyler, it's easy to criticize the circuit party scene for caring about money and not about people, in comparison with the festivals, which were such a uniting force. "On the other hand, if you are going to have a good time, it doesn't have to be political," she says. "As participants, it is pointless to argue against parties which are organized for us."

Others worry that women's circuit parties may end up emulating the men's. Lately, the men's parties across the country have come under fire for drug use and the inadvertent promotion of unsafe sex, especially be-cause many of the parties benefit AIDS organizations. The Gay Men's Health Crisis in New York, canceled the Morning Party this year following the death of one man from a drug overdose and the drug-possession arrest of one of the people hired, ironi-cally, to prevent drug use at the party.

In Atlanta, the police shut down one night of the Hotlanta dance weekend when three men were hospitalized for GHB (gamma hydroxy butyrate) overdoses.

The promoters of the women's parties say they haven't seen these sorts of problems at their events, and there are no reports in the media to the contrary. In fact, they credit their events with rising above the sorry conditions that characterized old-fashioned lesbian merry-making. Harrington says her events are nothing like the "skanky bars" women used to go to. In this way her events operate on the same underlying assumptions that the Dinah Shore Weekend does; that lesbian bars are inadequate, that women have the money and the desire to be treated to some extravagance, and that they want to have fun in style.

Promoters will point, moreover, to efforts they've made to invest some of their profits back into the community. In the past five years, money raised at WomenFest Key West for Harrington's breast cancer support foundation totaled $10,000. Jeffrey Sanker says that he has donated $150,000 to the Desert AIDS project over five years. (The men's parties in general donate much more money, mainly because most of their parties began as fund-raisers for AIDS service organizations. Women's venues became established and later decided to contribute some of their profits.)

N2 the controversy

The mainstreaming of lesbian nightlife may have an unexpected byproduct: straight promoters, if the 1999 events in Palm Springs are any indication, may want to get in on some of the action. This year a newcomer to the Dinah scene, promoter Jon Poling—a straight man who works with two women, one of them seasoned promoter Simone Sheffield—put on a program called "N2 the Nite" that featured two evenings of outdoor concerts and comedy acts. Looking for a crossover audience, N2 the Nite advertised in Palm Springs tourist brochures, local newspapers and radio stations as well as the lesbian press. Poling featured some lesbian performers, such as comedian Michelle Balan, but also singer Wynonna, who drew a mixed crowd. Sheffield says that her event was successful enough that she will do it again next year, claiming that 3,700 people attended the comedy and more than 5,000 the Wynonna concert. (Another estimate put the numbers at 1,500 and 2,800, respectively.)

N2 the Nite kicked up even more controversy when they announced in December that Ellen DeGeneres and Anne Heche would be their headliners. But those who bought tickets expecting to see DeGeneres and Heche were greatly disappointed after the two pulled out of the lineup. Sheffield claims that the two backed out of their contract and claims that her firm is suing their management. But the famed lesbian duo's publicist Simon Hall and lawyer Kevin Yorn say no. "That is absolutely false. No contract was signed," says Yorn, "because there had to be an out clause." Yorn has a letter from late October offering the spot to DeGeneres and Heche, and another which he wrote December 16 which states that the women could not attend—giving N2 the Nite more than 90 days advance warn-ing that they would have to find someone else. N2 the Nite also advertised Roseanne as a headliner, and then pulled her out of the lineup as well.

No ticket-holders' money was refunded.

Lesbian promo-ters in Palm Springs are careful to point out that they are not opposed to straight male promoters—or even to a little competition. But Hanson and her partners encountered a lot of homophobia in the early years and put a lot of work into developing their following. The Club Skirts/Girl Bar promoters were able to sign two year hotel contracts only a few years ago. Finally, after putting on their parties for nine years, they have a ten-year contract with their primary resort. What irks Hanson more than the possibility of lost business is the fact that it took so much for them to gain the trust of the Palm Springs business community—even though the Dinah Shore event is now the third largest weekend in this resort town, after the spendthrift men's weekend and a very large annual IBM convention. She says, "The competition is healthy, even though no one expects the straights to put on a comparable event." But on the other hand, she "hates to see other promoters, outside the community, take advantage of what I worked for, so easily."

With advertising directed at the general population, nonlesbian head-liners, and no real history of service to the lesbian community, it could just be a matter of time before N2 the Nite and like promoters put on events at Dinah Shore with no lesbian focus at all. As women are recognized as having money to spend on our own entertainment, there is nothing to prevent the straight world from courting our business, or even opening up our successful venues to a more general audience.

Out of the woods, into the strobe lights

In today's lesbian world, it may, as Robin Tyler suggests, be silly to try to mix politics with entertainment. But the history of lesbian music festivals proves that it didn't always seem so ridiculous. Music festivals were (and still are) produced from the bottom up by women, attended by women only, and always aimed at politics over profit. The music festival scene has always represented a distinctly "separatist" political agenda, an effort to empower gay women by creating an alternative subculture separate from men.

Lesbian circuit parties mark a radical departure from that tradition. At the risk of overinterpretation, the Dinah Shore Weekend may represent—unintentionally, of course—a distinctly "nineties" strategy, an effort to advance the rights and visibility of lesbians by establishing them in the mainstream. And if lesbians are going to experience more freedom in the twenty first century, to do so in the form of a market rather than a movement may seem like a small price to pay. As we have gatherings this large, there is money to be made, customers to target, and the national corporate sponsor-ships are starting to roll in. Gay women are demonstrating financial clout, and at the same time announcing to the world at large that they are ready to join up, be recognized, and sit down poolside at Palm Springs and order a six-dollar cocktail.

And it may be entirely to our advantage to have a choice. Some musicians have been able to cross over between the festival scene and the mainstream. Melissa Etheridge, for example, played Michigan and is now a very successful—and very out—rock and roll performer. Groups such as the Murmurs have played at both the Michigan Womyn's Music Festival and Palm Springs, and a number of the comedians work both circuits as well. And the same must be the case with partygoers, many of whom must go to both and lose none of the integrity of either.