Randolph Yesterday was the 17th annual Johannesburg Pride Parade, along with a well-organised but not well attended mardi gras. I did not attend the after-party.
As a previous Pride Committee member (2001), I thought it was probably the best organised event of this nature ever. What a shame hardly anyone attended. I estimate only 2000 people took part.
Since 2001, I've decided that politics should have no place in the organisation of the annual Pride event. I support the political side of things though (don't get me wrong – I marched on Saturday for my right to marry), but the mardi gras and after-party traditionally associated with Pride should be run as a business.
And this is how:
Every year, you pay just one hundred rand (or R10 a month) to get free access to the mardi gras, the parade, the after-party, and a bottle of bubbly at the event. If you put in R200 or more (for the year), you get VIP access to the after-party, including free parking (for example). It's just a simple matter to add up the R100 if five, ten (or twenty) thousand people put money in. Apparently the best attended parade had over 15 000 participants in the late 1990s.
See, the problem has always been politics versus money – the activists say that no one person or company can own "Pride", so therefore the community has to run it. They also say that the community should be able to function on hand-outs like sponsorships.
I say that's rubbish. Why? From experience in Pride itself, as well as other community organisations, voluntary committees cannot organise anything successfully (i.e. sustainable) without funding. It's a financial thing. However, with my idea, an incorporated company has a contract with every single person who puts in that money. Your R100 (or R200) will get you free access as outlined above.
Sure, the corporate event (as a Section 21 non-profit company) can support the political aspect, and even possibly fund itself as well as other worthy causes. There are many outreach programmes that are sorely in need of money.
But the bottom line is sustainability. Johannesburg Pride is ridiculed because there is no accountability or sustainability. Every year, someone tries to run it, and usually they run out of money and get into trouble with their creditors (and damage the reputation of the Pride brand). Plus, because of the lack of financing, the event is labelled a disaster. Then the following year, someone who claims to be able to "do it better" tries the same thing, and the cycle repeats itself. On the other hand, if it was left up to the community, it wouldn't happen at all, or the voluntary committee attrition would damage any attempt at improving the brand and making a successful and well-attended event.
In 2001, we eventually ended up with suspending the Pride Constitution just so that we could get the Parade organised. We cancelled the mardi gras due to lack of finance, and the after-party was a debacle too. Too long the community has been expecting hand-outs, and after 1996, corporate South Africa isn't interested.
So let's hand over the brand to a company, and our R100 a year buys us a part of that. It needs a brand manager, a hot (as in competent) marketing person, and a proper accountant. All the paperwork and ability is available to make this work. If the community wants it to be a success every year, we need to put our money where our mouth is. Where's the pride in fighting over where the parade is going to be, if we can't even agree on why we have Pride in the first place?