Mardi Party Hearty

Sydney Morning Herald

Friday February 26, 1999

MATT BUCHANAN

It's Saturday night, the Mardi Gras parade has popped its glittered clogs, and you're ready to dance. MATT BUCHANAN looks at the options.

This year, if you're not one of the 20,000 people who, by Australia Day, had happily snaffled every $85 ticket to the very "official" Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras Party at the old Sydney Showground, just exactly where you are going to dip your hips has been, of late, a matter of some interest, fierce competition and not a little controversy.

Naturally, with an estimated 6,000 overseas and interstate visitors in Sydney generating, along with the locals, upwards of $40 million, there are more alternative parties than ever. At the 22nd Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras, a necklace of satellite events has sprung up to cater for gay, straight and mixed crowds alike. But it has been the very recent addition of Mardi Gras's "official alternative" party, Satellite (see left), and the timing of its announcement, in particular, that has caused a stir.

The Satellite party was launched by SGLMG after a squabble with the organisers of a rival event, Rainbow Party 99, over their use of the words "Mardi Gras" in their advertising. Rainbow was forced to drop the words. The announcement of a SGLMG official alternative party, according to an article in February 11's Sydney Star Observer, left Rainbow organiser Dawn O'Donnell "devastated". O'Donnell maintained that Rainbow had held off selling tickets for three weeks so as "not to encroach on Mardi Gras", the article reported. O'Donnell was then quoted as tartly remarking that their party would now be known as "The Unofficial Mardi Gras Rainbow Party".

"There was some concern when it [Rainbow Party] was initially advertised," says SGLMG president David McLachlan. "Our position is that there's enough people in town for a lot of parties, but we didn't want to give people the false impression that this [Rainbow] was a party we organised. The amount of parties is no new phenomenon. It's been going on for about a decade. It always fluctuates but it's more current this year. Because of the work going on at the Showground, our numbers are down from 24,000 to 20,000.

So there are people missing out."

However, there's every likelihood that many of the 6,000-8,000 expected to attend Rainbow Party 99 will be drawn from a straighter mix crowd than that attending the official and unofficial Mardi Gras parties. After all, Rainbow does not have the members-only policy to ticket purchasing that the SGLMG established in 1991. (In order to maintain its integrity as a gay and lesbian event it was decided that from that point only SGLMG members could buy tickets to the party.) Initially up to four extra could be distributed to friends; from 1998, it was limited to two.

"Last year was the first time tickets were reduced from five to three," confirms McLachlan. "We go into a debate as to who's going to the party; whether it's the community or if, in throwing it out to a wider group of people, the ambience of the party will be threatened. So it's really making sure the party is limited to members and their selected guests."

Was this because of the yobbish behaviour of straights at previous parties?

"It certainly happened some years. There's been an outcry because the party has been taken over by men hassling women, which is really the main concern. Plus other people ridiculing people kissing and dancing," says McLachlan.

By contrast the Rainbow Party has a come one, come all policy.

"Everyone is welcome," says events manager Geoff Gougeon. "Our attitude is not to be confrontational but to live together. Of course the Rainbow Party has a gay base, but we believe we all have to live together. That's the only way to survive."

THE PARADE

The 1999 Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade will be preceded at 5.30pm by Foreplay, the traditional crowd-warmer featuring Dykes On Bikes, among many others, clearing their pipes up and down Oxford Street. The parade proper begins at 7.45pm at the corner of Elizabeth and Liverpool streets, and proceeds up Oxford Street, through Taylor Square and into Flinders Street. From there it's left into Moore Park Road, right into Driver Avenue, right into a newly constructed road passing the Bobby Goldsmith Foundation Raised Seating, then left into Anzac Parade to the old Showground.

WHEN AND WHERE TO SEE

Obviously, if you haven't a friend with a first-floor-or-higher balcony or office window then get there early. Organisers suggest being at the barricades at the corner of Liverpool and Oxford streets and at the end of Flinders Road at 4pm. There will be extra buses and trains all day.

Channel 10 will telecast the Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras Parade on Sunday from 8.30pm.

WHAT TO EXPECT

Says David McLachlan, SGLMG president: "This year's parade will feature 200 floats, probably with a more political focus [than last year]. Some of the entries I've seen are occurring in the context of a lead-up to the election and expressing a general disillusionment with the Carr Government regarding a failure to back up election promises." About 6,000 people will be involved in the parade, and for those interested, the police will be marching again.