The GLISA North America Outgames are projected to pump more than $13 million into the Metro Vancouver economy next week as the city hosts its first major international gay festival since the 1990 Gay Games.
The 4,500 athletes, coaches and relatives who visit the Outgames are also expected to boost attendance at events in the Vancouver Pride Society’s annual festival given that both festivals cater to the gay community and overlap between July 25 and 31.
Depending on the weather, the result could be nearly 700,000 coming downtown for the July 31 Vancouver Pride Parade – the largest crowd of people for a single event in Vancouver’s history.
“If you wanted to take in all of our events, you couldn’t, because there’s 60 events happening. You’d be quite tired if you tried to go to most of them. I know I would be,” said Outgames chairman John Boychuk.
“We have people coming from Africa, Europe, the Asia Pacific and South America who are coming to our festival as participants.”
The festival includes a raft of sporting events, which are all free to attend, as well as a human rights conference that has sessions on hate crimes, bullying and gender identity.
It will also have a cultural component. Local theatre groups, such as the non-profit Raving Theatre Co., would not have produced its Confessions of a Mad Drag Queen were it not for the boom in gay tourists likely to buy tickets, Boychuk said.
“These events have either been stepped up or introduced because of their appeal to Outgames athletes and visitors.”
Gay festivals have come a long way since Vancouver hosted 7,300 athletes and 1,500 cultural visitors for the third Gay Games in 1990 – the first tournament held outside San Francisco.
The Gay Games grew to include more than 12,000 athletes in Sydney in 2002 before a schism took place.
Montreal was awarded the 2006 Gay Games, but the Federation of Gay Games then stripped the city of its right to host because of concerns over its organizers’ fiscal accountability.
Organizers of the Montreal event created their own World Outgames, and later that year filed for bankruptcy protection, owing $5.3 million. The Outgames, however, survived to be hosted in 2009 in Copenhagen.
Confusingly, a continental Outgames offshoot was organized. So, Vancouver is hosting the North America Outgames four months after Wellington, New Zealand, hosted the Asia-Pacific Outgames.
The regional Outgames take place in-between World Outgames, and the Gay Games still exist.
The result is a spate of competing gay-themed festivals around the world, all of which court the lucrative gay tourist dollar.
The 4,500 visitors at Vancouver’s games are expected to spend about $385 each and stay eight days.
Athletes pay 70% of the Games’ $1.2 million budget, while sponsors such as the provincial government, Shaw Media Inc. and the Vancouver Park Board combine to pick up the remaining $3.6 million, Boychuk said.
Dozens of small business owners have combined to give discounts to athletes worth $350 each. The discounts kick in when athletes show a card in their orientation package.
In contrast, the Vancouver Pride Society’s (VPS) annual festival has a $738,000 budget that includes $500,000 cash and the balance in in-kind donations.
About half of that budget comes from parade fees and other revenue; 40% comes from sponsors such as Toronto-Dominion Bank (TSX:TD), Telus Corp. (TSX:T) and Pfizer Inc. (NYSE:PFE) and 10% comes from public grants.