Sydney Gay Mardi Gras: Selling Out?

TOPICS: Gay market. Australian gay market. Advertising. Gay advertising and media market in Australia. Gay market in Australia. Community politics in Sydney, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras and their gay PR advertising. Gay advertising and gay marketing in Australia. Sydney marketing. Pink dollar marketing. Gay marketing. Mainstream marketing. Gay community news. SX newspaper. Vanessa Wagner writes a column criticising Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras for selling out to commercial interests over the gay and lesbian community.

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The Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras has been a major part of Sydney life since 1978, when the NSW Police Service attempted to close down a gay rights march that happened in the streets of Sydney. In a local version of the New York Stonewall riots some nine years earlier, the lesbian and gay community of Sydney fought back and police made many arrests.

The events surrounding this eventful 1978 winter's night evolved over several years to metamorphose from a street protest to the largest nighttime gay and lesbian celebration in the world.

Like most people who have experienced a Mardi Gras parade and Mardi Gras party in Sydney, I remember well my first Mardi Gras parade in 1985, and the first huge gay Mardi Gras party I attended in 1988. Watching the Sonic Legend DJ David Hiscock spin disco to 15,000 dancing fans was a moment never to be forgotten.

I did not realize then that those intervening years up to the mid-1990s were to be the period of the Mardi Gras at the zenith of its success.

Since then the corporate entity that organizes Mardi Gras has collapsed under the weight of financial debts, been reborn through a manifestation of community support for the organization's history, and attempted to evolve Mardi Gras into being more of a commercially successful event.

In a trend we at Out Now are tracking that is being played out increasingly for many gay community events across the world, there is an ongoing conflict between the community and its desire for Mardi Gras to exist and to reflect gay community aspirations, and the commercial sector that views Mardi Gras as a great high profile gay marketing and gay PR opportunity.

In the middle sits the organizers, New Mardi Gras, who get criticized if they are not financially responsible and yet also cop it in the neck when they do enter into commercial arrangements which often are perceived by the community to be selling out the history of the community's own event for the sake of securing some quick pink dollars to fund operations.

Out Now, and our Australian office Significant Others, has written about this conflict before in Gay Market News and also in the Australian mainstream news media.

As I write this from our Australian office, I thought you may be interested to learn that the now traditional Mardi Gras gay community - gay market commercial debate is once again swirling around Mardi Gras.

The news is the same as in the past with opposing points of view doing battle.

In last week's Sydney SX News opinion article by Vanessa Wagner:

"It's saddening to see how visually and politically mediocre our world showcase has become over the last decade," said Wagner. "But am I the only one who finds it somewhat bewildering in what should be an irreverent, hilarious, community-based poof-and-dyke-fest, to watch a bunch of bank, radio and chewing-gum factory employees act as, well, prancing ads? I'm sure they're having a ball, but who else is?"

"Let's get rid of crass product-placement and ensure that sponsored floats are about Mardi Gras, not the sponsor."

Now in the latest news edition of Sydney SX news, drag artiste Mitzi Macintosh weighs in with the community support argument:

"We all know Mardi Gras is in a rebuilding process but as we place two bricks on the wall that is our community there will always be somebody with a hammer and chisel willing to tear it down. I was extremely disappointed to read Vanessa's column in last week's paper."

The conundrum continues as Sydney's Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras, like other gay community Pride and Christopher Street Day CSD events the world over, struggle to reconcile gay marketing corporates seeking favourable gay PR with the demands of their constituent gay communities - to whom the gay community organizations owe their very existence.

Stay tuned.

To learn more about gay community organizations and how to develop effective gay marketing and PR sponsorships, by understanding how these need to be carefully managed to make sure the gay community reacts well to the brand's initiatives, contact Out Now.
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