Plans for West Hollywood’s first self-produced Pride event took shape on Monday night, as City Councilmembers decided to proceed with a proposal by JJLA, Inc. to include their “OUTLoud: Raising Voices” music festival as an anchor to other events.
West Hollywood has celebrated Pride each June since the city was founded in 1984. A typical Pride month in the past included a ticketed festival at West Hollywood Park with musical performances and other entertainment, a parade on Sunday morning, and a community festival and market along Santa Monica Boulevard. Many of the events were produced by the Christopher Street West nonprofit, with significant assistance by the city of WeHo, which lent the organization its facilities and provided public safety resources, as well as its sponsorships.
Last year, Christopher Street West announced it would no longer produce its LA Pride events in West Hollywood.
Last year’s OUTLoud: Raising Voices took the form of a three-day concert at the L.A. Coliseum and featured a number of LGBTQI musical artists including Adam Lambert and Kim Petras. This coming year’s event would likely be held at West Hollywood Park. It would be a for-profit ticketed event produced by JJLA at their own expense.
Council tentatively decided Monday night to hand the reins over the JJLA regarding ancillary events that so-called “affinity groups” such as community nonprofits might wish to hold.
They also decided that the city itself would not produce a parade, although they left the door open for an affinity group to step and produce it independently.
Discussion arose over whether to provide a safety tent.
“In the past we’ve created a public safety tent and I still have concerns about that,” said Councilmember Lindsey Horvath. “I know that we’ve created that to help offset impact on related facilities in the area but the idea that we’re creating a place for people to get exorbitantly intoxicated and treated in the city I think is not the message that we want to be sending. And we did have a Pride last year where people went out and visited our bars and we didn’t pay millions of dollars for that tent to exist. I think that if what we’re doing is encouraging people to go out to our businesses we were able to manage that safely last year and my hope and expectation is that we can continue to manage things safely without creating the perception that it’s OK to be out of control.”
Public Safety Director Kirsten Cook explained why it was necessary.
“The medical tent with that volume of people in town is not an option. The county EMS agency approves our mass gathering plans for just that amount of people in town so we definitely need a medical tent to care for just the volume of patients that we get because the volume of people
that are in town can be two, three times our residential population and the hospitals just can’t bear the burden of the sprained ankles and overly intoxicated (people), the things that happen in large crowds. So what happened last year, we felt we were walking a fine line without it last year
and we also weren’t doing concerts in the park and things like that.”
The council settled on a budget of $1 million, with staff and JJLA to report back on the specifics of how those funds are divvied up.
Why does Horvath think she’s the city’s nanny by sending behavioral messages to residents and visitors?
We just need the dates……so we can plan a trip out of town.
Can you make that trip permanent? Doesn’t sound like you enjoy living here. Why don’t you do yourself a favor?!
In my day, I got to see music legends like Olivia Newton-John and Cyndi Lauper play WeHo’s Pride fest. Today, you get Adam Lambert and Tik-Tok “talent.” Lol. Enjoy!
I watched their full discussion. Horvath was way off base: “In the past we’ve created a public safety tent and I still have concerns about that … we’re creating a place for people to get exorbitantly intoxicated and treated in the city I think is not the message that we want to be sending …” Nobody is sending a message by having a safety tent. Some people are going to get exorbitantly intoxicated, either way, and that is far from all it is used for. When you have a crowd, people are going to experience medical issues, not all related… Read more »
She’s not the brightest star on the West Hollywood Corrupt Council.
She is a one trick pony. She is seeking a county office so naturally everything on her mind and in her comments is meant to make her seem smart enough to move out of West Hollywood City Council. She suffers from the “Sarah Palin Syndrome” whereby a person feels a sense of importance and intelligence because they were elected to a meaningless position.