KC gay pride and street fest is June 1-3.

[tat2kc]

Gay pride is coming up soon. The street fest will again be on the First Friday in June, with Main Street blocked off friday evening 6pm to midnight.  Saturday and Sunday will host the festival at the Liberty Memorial again, with free admission. It runs 11 am to 10 pm.

The AIDS quilt will be on display ( a small portion) in a  pavillion with a memorial garden: http://www.aidsquilt.org/
Entertainment:  Chaka Kahn: 
                       Martha Wash
                       Nemesis
                       J.P. Calderon
                       God-des and She

For more information, the website is:  http://www.kansascitygaypride.org/index2.html

It looks like a fun line up, with well over 100 vendors, free entertainment, food and alcohol.  If you're around, come on down and enjoy the festival.  Please remember, even though its focused on the LGBT community, the festival always welcomes everyone to the festivities. Pets and Heteros welcome!!!

For a little background on what the festival is about, we are celebrating the anniversary of the Stonewall rebellion in NYC in 1969, in which the drag queens at the Stonewall Inn fought back against the police, and ended the evening with the the police barricading themselves in the bar while the gay and lesbian folks demonstrating outside in the streets. The demonstrations continued for several nights, and many mark this event as the beginning of the gay rights movement:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/lweb/eresour ... case1.html

[tat2kc]

yup. chaka is performing Saturday night at 9:45

[DaveKCMO]

chaka khan, for real?

[DTO]

How many people turned out for this? Two of my friends went down there since it was a different weekend from ours.

[DaveKCMO]

chaka khan sucked.

[jaysonv]

chaka khan sucked.

We went so that we could say that we've been to a Chaka Kahn concert... We realized quickly that we are not Chaka Kahn fans though.  We wanted to at least stay to hear the one song we'd know, "I'm Every Woman" but couldn't take it and left after the third song.  We should have held out just a bit longer.

I did enjoy her random falsetto gibberish between songs though. 

[Slappy the Wang]

chaka khan sucked.

Where was Atlantic Star, El Debarge and Herbie Hancock?

[tat2kc]

the Star reported that 50,000 folks attended over the 3 days.

[bahua]

When we passed Missie B's and Tootsie's on Saturday, they both had lines going out the door.

I would guess that Daddy's saw no difference in business, whatsoever.

[tat2kc]

Daddy's suuucks. Which is too bad, its a great space and the outdoor patio would be great, if it were run by different people. 

I was kind of surprised at the "blandness" of the booths. banking, financial planning, real estate, insurance, was mostly it. KCMO health department had a good booth, as did a couple other places. But not a lot that was specifically "LGBT oriented. yea, its good to know what company wants my business, and I'd certianly give more weight to a business that at least markets to me, but I would have preferred some more unusual booths. maybe some of the music labels, or even a film studio or two, like I've seen at other LGBT events around the country.

[Maitre D]

the Star reported that 50,000 folks attended over the 3 days.

Meaning, the actual count was probably under 10,000.

[tat2kc]

[KCKev]

Meaning, the actual count was probably under 10,000.

Only for those with eyes wide closed!