“This year was like a $40,000 cesspool,” Sarasota’s Harvey Milk Festival President Shannon Fortner says, nearly two months after the festivities meant to honor the San Francisco (and global) legend of gay rights activism. This year’s party, featuring electro-pop emotion-driver Bright Light Bright Light (Rod Thomas), who recently opened for Elton John out west, was practically ruined by Florida’s fantastic flirtations with precipitation deluges. Though raw estimates of attendance were somewhere in the 2,000 to 5,000 range in its sixth year, inclement weather hindered the nonprofit from making up its financial losses, Fortner says.
“This is our sixth year and we’ve never had a rain problem,” she says. “And we already had our first protesters this year. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing … That, and the rain was a distraction.”
To remedy the perils of a Florida summer in a year of LGBT celebration — clearly, the marriage decision and Milk’s May 22 birthday were in mind for the May 16 celebration at Five Points Park — Fortner has pulled together a July 11 fundraiser in order to keep the popular celebration free to audiences.
“This is a festival to keep the festival going,” she says. Also, however, it’s “an excuse to get together and celebrate.”
Information on the latest event can be found on the group’s Facebook page. Or, you can just recruit yourself to Throb Nightclub in Sarasota from 7 p.m. to 10 p.m. this Saturday. Fortner’s own band Meteoreyes (SRQ) will be performing, as will DJ Imminent. Dogs will not be pooping in parks, though.
