District of Columbia
Hundreds shut out of Cherry circuit party at Howard Theatre
Organizers apologize, promise refunds
Cherry Fund, the D.C.-based nonprofit organization that has raised money for HIV/AIDS, mental health, and LGBTQ organizations over the past 25 years through its annual weekend circuit party events, issued an apology this week for the abrupt cancellation of one of its events and a decision by the Howard Theatre to stop admitting people to a separate Cherry event at that location on grounds of overcrowding.
The Saturday night, April 9, event at the Howard Theatre, called FLAWLESS, was considered one of the main dance party events of the Cherry 2022 weekend, with prominent DJs, entertainers and more than 1,000 people from the D.C. area and other parts of the country in attendance.
“The Cherry Fund wants to apologize for the experience to our valued patrons received over this past weekend during our 25th Anniversary Benefit Weekend,” a statement released by the Cherry Fund on Tuesday says. “Cherry is now beginning the process of issuing refunds to the patrons for the cancelled Evolution event and Flawless event to those who were not permitted to enter the venue,” the statement says.
Allen Sexton, the Cherry Fund president, told the Washington Blade Howard Theatre officials stopped admitting people into the theater after claiming the building’s legal capacity limit of 1,242 people had been reached. But Sexton said Cherry Fund’s all-volunteer staff have carefully looked through the ticket sales records and determined the total number of tickets sold for the event was 1,178. He said the numbers show that the event was not overbooked.
Sexton said theater staff members told him they never took a full count of the number of people inside the theater on the night of the event. Instead, according to Sexton, one of the theater managers told him, “I can just look at the floor and tell” how many people are present.
People waiting to get into the theater reported on social media that as many as 300 or more people were forced to wait in line outside the theater in cold outdoor temperatures with the hope of getting in. According to social media reports, including on Facebook, many of those waiting on two lines went home after D.C. police officers on duty told them the theater was filled to capacity and few if any more people would be allowed inside.
D.C. police spokesperson Brianna Burch told the Blade members of the department’s LGBTQ Liaison Unit were on duty at the Howard Theatre event.
“To ensure the security and safety of all patrons, MPD members notified patrons that the event was at capacity,” Burch said. “It is my understanding that eventually patrons who were waiting outside were let into the event.”
Howard Theatre did not respond to a request from the Blade for comment on the question of whether they incorrectly estimated the number of people at the theater as suggested by Sexton. Sexton, however, said it was possible that some of the people waiting to get into the theater did not have tickets and were hoping to be able to purchase tickets at the door.
He said a separate event scheduled for late Friday night, April 8, through the early morning hours of Saturday, April 9, until around 9 a.m. had to be cancelled when the city’s Alcoholic Beverage Regulation Administration denied an application by Decades nightclub on Connecticut Avenue, N.W. near Dupont Circle to extend its operating hours through the early morning hours to serve as host for the dance party event, called EVOLUTION.
The legally required closing time for most D.C. bars and nightclubs is 3 a.m. on weekends, although Decades’ weekend closing time is 4 a.m.
An ABRA spokesperson told the Blade the application for the extended operating hours was submitted by Sexton rather than by one of the owners of Decades nightclub as required under ABRA regulations. The spokesperson, Jared Powell, said ABRA emailed the Decades manager, Joe Aguila, on March 3 to inform him the application could not be accepted unless one of the owners signed their name on the required document.
“ABRA received no response to the email notification,” Powell said. Powell noted that under ABRA rules, the Alcoholic Beverage Control Board, which meets once a week on Wednesdays, must give final approval of a “substantial change” in operating hours for clubs licensed to sell alcoholic beverages.
Powell said that on Thursday, April 7, one day after the ABC Board’s last meeting before the Cherry events were scheduled to begin on April 7, the Decades’ manager came to the ABRA office to inquire about the status of the application. He said one day later, on April 8, Sexton came to the ABRA office asking about the application.
“Both parties were advised that they missed the required application window for timely ABC Board consideration,” Powell told the Blade in an email.
Sexton disputes this claim, saying he believes the Decades owner provided the required signed application in time for the ABC Board meeting on Wednesday morning, April 6, possibly through an email attachment.
According to Sexton, the negative fallout from the canceled dance party event on Friday night-Saturday early morning and the Howard Theatre’s refusal to admit patrons to the Saturday night FLAWLESS main event cast a negative light on an otherwise successful weekend, with eight other events taking place as scheduled.
“We are sorry,” says the Cherry Fund statement released on April 12. “In hindsight, we could have gone about producing this weekend in a more efficient manner. We did not and we are to blame,” it says.
“We will begin to investigate the details of failures within our own organization, as well as the shortcomings of venues,” the statement continues. “We will release additional details as they become available.”
The Cherry Fund website describes its annual Cherry weekend events as “one of the longest all volunteer non-profit LGBTQIA Dance Music Festivals” that it says has donated more than $1.3 million in “grants and support benefiting mental health and HIV/AIDS service organizations in the D.C. metropolitan region and beyond.”
In its statement released on April 12, Cherry Fund says its decision to refund the money for ticket sales for the cancelled event and the ticket holders unable to attend the Howard Theatre event “will most likely result in our inability to give money back to the HIV/AIDS and mental health community organizations in 2022.”
The statement adds, “We are in the process of working with TicketLeap to start the refund process. Please send your refund request to [email protected]. Refunds will be processed to only the individuals that purchased their tickets that were issued to them on the TicketLeap platform. All refund requests must be submitted by April 30, 2022.”
District of Columbia
Billy Porter, Keke Palmer, Ava Max to perform at Capital Pride
Concert to be held at annual festival on June 9
The Capital Pride Alliance, the group that organizes D.C.’s annual LGBTQ Pride events, announced this week the lineup of performers for the Sunday, June 9, Capital Pride Concert to be held during the Capital Pride Festival on Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. near the U.S. Capitol.
Among the performers will be nationally acclaimed singers and recording artists Billy Porter and Keke Palmer, who will also serve as grand marshals for the Capital Pride Parade set to take place one day earlier on Saturday, June 8.
The Capital Price announcement says the other lead performers will be Ava Max, Sapphira Cristal, and the pop female trio Exposé.
“The beloved pop icons will captivate audiences with upbeat performances coupled with their fierce advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights, echoing the vibrant spirit of this year’s theme, ‘Totally Radical,’” according to a statement released by Capital Pride Alliance.
“With Billy Porter and Keke Palmer leading the parade as Grand Marshals, we’re not only honoring their incredible contributions to the LGBTQ+ community but also amplifying their voices as fierce advocates for equality and acceptance,” Capital Pride Alliance Executive Director Ryan Bos said in the statement.
“The concert and festival serve as a platform to showcase the diverse array of LGBTQ+ talent, from the chart-topping hits of Ava Max to the iconic sounds of Exposé and the electrifying performances of Sapphira Cristal,” Bos said in the statement. “Capital Pride 2024 promises to be a celebration like no other.”
The concert will take place from 12-10 p.m. on the main stage and other stages across the four-block long festival site on Pennsylvania Avenue.
District of Columbia
200 turn out for ’Love Fest’ Drag Story Hour at Freddie’s
Performer reads stories to kids and parents as three protest outside
Between 200 and 250 people, including parents and their children, turned out on Saturday, May 4, for a “Love Fest” Drag Story Hour brunch hosted by the Arlington, Va., LGBTQ establishment Freddie’s Beach Bar and Restaurant.
Local drag performer Tara Hoot, who read children’s stories and handed out coloring books to the kids attending the event, was joined by members of the Gay Men’s Chorus of Washington, which sang several songs before Hoot began reading from children’s books in keeping with the tradition of drag queens conducting Drag Story Hour events across the country.
The May 4 event at Freddie’s in the Crystal City section of Arlington took place four weeks after the start of a similar event hosted by Freddie’s was delayed by a bomb threat, forcing those who had arrived to exit through a rear door and wait in a parking lot as Arlington police conducted a search of the premises with a bomb sniffing dog. No trace of a bomb was found.
All the customers, including parents and their kids, were invited back inside and the show took place as planned.
No similar threat occurred at the May 4 event. But three male protesters assembled on the sidewalk next to the parking lot behind the Freddie’s building, with one of them shouting from a bullhorn passages from his Bible that he said indicated the Drag Story Hour event was an “abomination.”
The three protesters were outnumbered by nearly a dozen counter protesters who were members of the Rainbow Defense Coalition, an LGBTQ organization. They carried bright, rainbow-colored umbrellas while chanting messages of support for the Drag Story Hour event.
Freddie Lutz, Freddie’s Beach Bar owner, called the event a “smashing success” that brought an “outpouring of love from the community.” Lutz released a flier on social media promoting the Love Fest event shortly after the earlier event interrupted by the bomb threat as a showing of love “to stop the hate.”
“Join us for the next story time brunch dressed in your favorite rainbow/hippie outfit” and “carry your favorite homemade signs of support,” Lutz said in his promotional flier. He came to the event dressed in what he called his hippie protest outfit.
Lutz said while the protesters did not interrupt the event, he was concerned that their shouting was scaring some of the kids as they and their parents walked by the protesters to enter Freddie’s.
“I went out back and tried to talk to one of them and it was kind of like talking to a brick wall,” Lutz told the Washington Blade. “He was screaming at the parents that were crossing their kids on the crosswalk,” Lutz said. “And I said, you’re screaming at those kids, you’re scaring them.”
Lutz said the man told him he was yelling at the parents, not the kids. “And I said, no you’re not. The kids are hearing you. You’re scaring them.”
Added Lutz, “And to have such a fun-loving, happy show and then walk out on the sidewalk to that is very disheartening. It’s really sad. I told him my God is a forgiving and loving God.”
One of the protesters, who declined to disclose his name, said he and his two fellow protesters came to talk about the gospel of Jesus Christ.
“We want them to know this is an abomination to the Lord,” he told the Blade. “We want them to know those children don’t have a voice and they’re being brainwashed in there. We’re here to call out their sin.”
Stephanie Krenrich, who brought her two-year-old daughter to the event, said she strongly disputes the claims of the protesters.
“I brought my daughter here because I think that it was a beautiful and wonderful show, and it was great for her,” she said. “And I think it’s pretty offensive when people come to Arlington and tell parents what to do, especially for something so beautiful and so fun and so wholesome,” she told the Blade.
“So that’s why I brought her,” Krenrich said. “I think that it’s really important that we stand up for our values and people just being themselves, being happy and being them.”
Among those who attended the event were four elected officials from Arlington – Virginia State Sen. Barbara Favola, Virginia State Del. Adele McClure, Arlington County Board member Maureen Coffee, and Arlington and Falls Church State’s Attorney Parisa Dehgani-Tafti.
Also attending was Nick Benton, editor and publisher of the LGBTQ supportive Falls Church, Va., News Press; and Kellen McBeth, president of the LGBTQ group Equality Arlington.
“It was fantastic to see so many people come out to support Freddie’s, to support the LGBTQ+ community,” McBeth said. “It was a great event and we’re happy to be a part of it.”
District of Columbia
Another successful Taste of Point fundraiser
Scholars praise financial, networking support
The Point Foundation hosted its annual Taste of Point DC fundraising event on Thursday with nine participating restaurants, a drag performance, and a silent auction.
The event was hosted on the rooftop of the Room & Board on 14th Street, with an afterparty at Shakers. Point donors, scholars, and alumni circled the rooftop eating chips and guacamole from Mi Vida and drinking Pinot Grigio from Barkada.
After about an hour of mingling the events began with event committee member, Kelly Horton and Kevin Kim Wright, chief of staff welcoming the crowd and speaking about the importance of their presence during this pivotal time in queer youth history. Then, Wright welcomed BIPOC Scholar Katherine Guerrero Rivera, saying she was a model of a Point scholar.
“We’re always impressed with all of our scholars and Katherine is another example of a student who is deeply engaged in their campus life and a myriad of projects, everything from creating her own podcast to being a part of a number of student organizations.” Wright said.
Rivera said that the Point Foundation scholarship helps her resist the pressure to drop out. She pointed out that just over 50 percent of Latina students who attend college graduate.
“The Point BIPOC Scholarship is not just financial support, Point has connected me with hundreds of people like me studying on campuses across the country.” she said.
Rivera is a criminology major and poetics minor at University of Maryland and said she hopes to use her degree to bring knowledge to her community through art and advocacy. She said it is important for her to take academic jargon and make it accessible to her community.
“Too often, the history of LGBTQ and people are ignored and silenced during our education,” she said. “I want to use my access to higher education and the chance to develop my creative skills to bring light to societal issues.”
She finished her speech with applause for the audience, then Horton came back with drag queen Tara Hoot to discuss ways donors could continue to support the Point Foundation.
After the lineup of events Wright said he felt great about the event, because it was a celebration of Point’s scholars.
“Some are interning for United States senators, some are volunteering for leading national non-profits, so to be able to celebrate all that’s being done here is truly amazing,”
Wright continued, thanking the D.C. restaurant community for consistently showing up in force to support Point.
“This really helps to paint the picture that this movement is growing,” he said. “People believe in this mission to provide LGBTQ young people with the opportunity to pursue their higher education goals, to improve their leadership abilities and then go on to make a significant impact on society.”
CLICK HERE to see more photos from Taste of Point.
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