Exciting news, folks!  I just gotten word that Grammy Award winning DJ Peter Rauhofer will be part of our lineup for the 2009 San Diego Pride Parties.  The will be Peter’s first appearance in San Diego since I believe 2002, making this a very special and rare event indeed.  For those not familiar with him, here’s his official bio.

As I said before, tickets and the complete lineup will be available May 15…but if I am able to “leak” more details out in the meantime here, I will do so!  )

Speaking of the tickets, we’ve tentatively decided to cap the number available for each night at 2000.  Yes, this is a bit conservative for a venue the size of 4th and B I suppose, but the comfort and safety of our guests takes priority over profit.  In our experience, long lines and hot, overcrowded conditions are things most Pride partygoers would rather avoid.

In party news elsewhere, the big story seems to be drama over the One Might Weekend parties held during Gay Days Orlando.  For those of you who have not been following this over at The Circuit Dog, I’ll give you the Reader’s Digest version:  The OMW promoter advertised and sold tickets, months in advance, for a party weekend centered around venues at Disney locations.  Well, with less than two months prior to the parties, it becomes known that those venues will not be hosting those parties; reputedly, due the promoter having unsettled bills from the year before.  So, a mad scramble begins to find new venues, which turns out to be a couple Orlando area hotels.

Well, the big selling point of the weekend was these Disney venues; the promoter himself admitted as much in an interview last year:

“It’s the perfect setting,” he says. “It’s not a building that you throw a party in. … One Mighty Weekend is built around Disney.”

Naturally, ticketholders are less than thrilled about a weekend now suddenly built around hotel ballrooms and pools, so there is a lot of torch-and-pitchfork wielding anger out there.  This blogger’s reaction is pretty representative, I would say.  Although party tickets are being refunded, I personally have friends here in San Diego who are stuck with nonrefundable airline tickets and hotel reservations.  Ouch!  Well, looking at this whole mess from the sidelines, I have to say the whole affaire makes an excellent case study in how NOT to promote parties.

Which gets me back to the upcoming 2009 San Diego Pride Parties.  A lot of people have been clamoring me for details, but just be patient.  As you can see from the cautionary tale above, it’s a very very bad thing for a party promoter to promise something he doesn’t deliver.  As I understand it, there are alot of great things in the works, but until they get set in stone, it’s probably best that they remain under wraps.

And finally, nine new photo albums below from last week…enjoy!

Jim Winsor (jim@sdpix.com)