Yesterday I was at the Pride Festival for most of the day; I had two booths that I had to cover. They closed down Main St for about three blocks, from City Hall to the Old State House and where we had our tables the wind roared through wind tunnel that the tall building created. They had the stage down on the south end of the street and our tables were way on the very end of Main St by the Old State House. We were the last vendors before the road block down in the Trannies Slums, all of the trans-groups were located there out of the main area (Maybe that is too harsh, I don’t think that they did it on purpose, it is just that we were all the non-paying vendors.).
The festival over all was organized very well and I had no real complaints, however I think have the festival from 3:00PM to 11:00PM was not conducive to have a family atmosphere. There were a number of couples with kids there but only from about 3:00 until 5:00 or 6:00, then it was mainly young adults and couples. When it was held at Bushnell Park from Noon until 6:00PM the entire time there were couples there pushing strollers or with young kids in tow. Also having it on Main St created second class booths, those that were closes to the stage got all the traffic and the father away you got the less traffic at the booths. At Bushnell Part they had the vendors in a circle around the stage and the traffic was equal all around. The paper say that there were 20,000 attendee but I only saw a tenth of that way down on our end.
Which brings up another topic, news coverage or the lack there of. The local newspaper had two good articles about the festival, one on Friday and one today. The television outlets coverage, zero, -0-, zip. With 20,000 people there you would think that they might had said something about it, especially considering one of the televisions network studio is just a couple of blocks away from where our table was. What did they cover? Planting of four trees in Hartford by five people that was a few blocks away. Now do you think that they were afraid to mention a GLBT event?
I was immensely disappointed yet not surprised. I waited up watching news at 10 and then 11 and then the repeat - thinking I may have 'missed' the coverage in the event. NOTHING! They did cover some musical event in Hartford, but our 'best kept secret' of transsexuals in society was just that, kept a secret yet again.
ReplyDeleteI'm seeing this political little message first hand in trying to get licensing information and as soon as I mentioned my specialization (being gender variance, primarily trans and intersexed) suddenly no one has any answers, papers has been misplaced and my email communications have 'not been received'.
I'm beginning to feel it's the states assumption that if we don't acknowledge that 'they'll just go away'... NOT A CHANCE
Well, at least the weather was cooperative.
I hope what you are saying is not true, that it just typical government bureaucratic incompetence and note because of lack of policy. But I am afraid you are probably right, they do not have a policy in place.
ReplyDeleteAnd no the weather did not hold off, around 7:00PM it started to pour. We saw the dark sky to the west so we packed up and we were not quick enough by about five minutes. It pour while they were waiting for me to get the car.