GALA/LA Same Sex Dances Bomb!

Time For "Fresh" Ideas?

Once every so often a decision is made that we all shake our heads at; this was clearly the case with regards to GALA/LA’s Same Sex Only Dances held during the month of November, 2010. When a decision like this is made you generally have information to back up your decision and I assumed that there was. However, I believe assumptions are the foundation of failure in any proper decision making process so I decided to do some investigating of my own.

Date: Saturday November 27, 2010
Event: GALA/LA Men’s Only Dance (Moose Hall, Lethbridge)

11:32 PM – I Love the Snow

With a fresh layer of snow on the ground and the flakes falling all around, winter had definitely fallen upon our prairie city; blanketing it in white velvet. The evening started with such promise; a gathering of friends having a few drinks before hitting up Lethbridge’s first Men’s Only Gay Dance. I had thought it was a fantastic idea when originally announced as it had never been done in this demographic before.

With the snow all about and a few lubricating drinks within me, downed previous to departure, I was enjoying the sound of the snow crunching under my feet as I approached my destination.

08:35 AM – Saturday Morning, At Last

I remember waking up with the hint of sun dancing across my bedroom; spires of tickling light awakening my senses and gently moving me from sleep into consciousness. It was morning, mostly grey outside, but light penetrated the clouds illuminating the sky as if Zeus had thrown columns of light to the earth. It was magical to look at.

A yawn and stretch later I remembered that the evening would be full of social events as I made my morning coffee to sip on while checking my numerous messages on even more numerous social message delivery devices and software. (It kinda gets that way when you have a double persona). Verifying the information, location and times of GALA/LA’s Mens Only Dance and pre-event fun didn’t take too long as I had been monitoring the situation on the Facebook Event’s Page for weeks; so I decided to start my day relatively early. I hopped out of my pajamas and into my day.

8:57 PM – Enroute to Party Time

The familiar sound of crunching snow under my boots excited me. It had just started snowing a week ago and with the lazy mood the weather was in; it was falling magically all around me. I love this time of year. I was just about to my friend’s place where I was destined to have a few drinks before arriving to check out the scene at the dance. I had been talking to people about the dance for weeks gathering various perspectives and information from people to write about it later (See current article). The information I had gathered from the women from their dance was that it was severely under attended and not a great time so I was trying to get a pulse on tonight’s event up until tonight.

Friends in good spirits, check. Good conversation, check. The notion the night would good well, check. All lights were green, and then I heard something I’d heard many times over the past two weeks, “My girlfriends tell me their dance bombed; there was really poor attendance”. The statement caught me a little off-guard since I was in a great mood, but I can’t say I was surprised. My own research following the event led me to a few conclusions made by our community regarding the gender specific events:

1. GALA/LA has a hard enough time stocking the co-ed dances to a reasonable level. By dissecting the crowd into separate events attendance would be even less.
2. Some of the community believes that by separating the men and women that it would only appear to serve to further segregate our community.
3. Those that voiced their opinions about having a separate event for the ladies; did not intend for something so extravagant for a first event to birth itself. They had thought something low key as a water-tester would be appropriate.

I decided to check the event listing on the Facebook Event Page. The results were still discouraging as noted this morning:

17 Attending
31 Maybe Attending
97 Awaiting Reply
110 Not Attending

I decided to cross-reference to the Women’s Only Event to do a comparative analysis:

22 Attending
48 Maybe Attending
122 Awaiting Reply
96 Not Attending

My light hearted mood suddenly dropped a shade. If the information I had just gathered was correct, and our numbers were fewer then the Women’s Dance listing, then our evening would most likely go bust as well.

10:54 PM – Enjoying My Time

After socializing around the room and enjoying myself. it was mentioned we should get a move on the dance. Decisively I messaged a contact I knew would be at the dance already seeking confirmation about what we all dreaded in the first place; and it came. It was virtually a ghost town at the dance with a reported 5 guests. We decided to talk about it before anything else.

11:42 PM – Disappointed

I dusted off my scarf and hung it, along with my jacket, up in the front hall closet of my home. I had made the obvious choice; head home instead of stand around at a dance attempting to talk to five people. It was quite clear that we didn’t have the community to support same-sex-only-dances as of yet and that the current leadership on the GALA/LA Board of Directors hadn’t taken that into account. The information was there; low numbers at previous dances would suggest even lower numbers at separate sex events since effectively you’re cutting half of the population out of the equation.

I wonder how the current leadership came up with this intelligently to begin with.

Do you think that the proper research was put into rationalizing what became a waste of resources for November’s GALA/LA events? Do you feel that that our city can support same-sex-only events? Write to Gossip Guy at gossipguy@bell.net to share your opinion.

Gossip Guy, you know you love me -xoxo