Gay and Lesbian Games Vie with 'Olympic Fatigue'

Vancouver has been selected to host the 2011 North American Outgames a celebration of gay and lesbian sports, human rights and culture. The 10-day event will bring in thousands of athletes and fans in the week before the Pride parade and festival, and receive very little government funding, "only about $300,000, which is very low," claims Vancouver Pride Society president John Boychuk. "The whole thing is self-supporting, with most of the money coming in through the athletes' registrations."

But the games may risk a strong case of Olympic hangover after 2010. And some worry the Outgames will feel plastered with corporate branding needed to bolster the budget.

On the plus side, say supporters, Vancouver has an opportunity to send a strong message about lesbian, gay, transgendered and bisexual (LGTB) people.

"If queer visibility spikes in your city, there's a potential for really interesting things to happen," says Amber Dawn Upfold, director of programming for Out on Screen, Vancouver's international queer film festival, which started because the city hosted the Gay Games in 1990. "People in the arts community got together and said 'The Gay Games are coming. Queers around the world will be here, and there should be a cultural component to this. Let's do something.'"

2010 fatigue?

"The community will be a little saturated with Olympic activity by 2011," argues Chris Shaw, a prominent anti-Olympic organizer and founder of 2010 Watch "When people realize it's expensive, it's disruptive to transit and lives in general, no matter how important the social issues are, they'll think, do they want to play that game again? The answer, I think, will be a resounding NO."

John Boychuk is optimistic. "Fifteen months after the Olympics, there will be a huge void to fill with a lot of Olympic facilities sitting empty, and the gay community will then have the ability to step in and showcase itself.

"Will there be a certain amount of fatigue? Of course," acknowledges Boychuck. "But we are nowhere near as large as the Olympics. I think Vancouverites know the benefits of these games, because there will be a large human rights component as well."

The Outgames will combine sporting events, which are open to both gay and gay-friendly athletes, with a large human rights conference held at UBC, and cultural celebrations happening around the city.

The human rights conference, which is expected to attract close to a thousand people, has yielded important documents in past host cities. The Declaration of Montreal, which outlines basic human rights for the LGTB community around the world, emerged from the first World Outgames in Montreal in 2006. The declaration has been endorsed by a growing number of cities and political organizations, including the federal NDP, the Quebec provincial NDP and the Bloc Quebecois.

But how much does such a moment end up costing -- and who pays?

Montreal's $5 million overrun

The financial track record of past Outgames is far from solid. In 2006, Montreal was set to host the Gay Games, which have been around for more than 25 years. It all started to fall apart when Montreal unveiled a massive budget for the Games, sparking a feud which resulted in the Gay Games packing up and moving to Chicago, who had proposed a smaller-scale event. Montreal decided to go ahead with the event anyway, renaming their event "The Outgames," and creating a new governing body called the Gay and Lesbian International Sport Association (GLISA).

After all was said and done, the consensus was that Montreal's event was far more spectacular, more fun and better organized. It was also far more expensive. A Quebec government audit after the Montreal Outgames confirmed a $5.3-million deficit, and the Montreal Gazette reported a further $2.2 million was owed to non-government sources, suppliers, and athletes. Tennis star Martina Navratilova was reportedly left with only half the money organizers had promised her, and was left high and dry when they later filed for bankruptcy.

All this after the Outgames had originally insisted that the event "would pay for itself."

Open arms for corporations

Organizers say Vancouver's Outgames will avoid the financial mistakes of Montreal for a few reasons. Vancouver's event will not be a World Outgames, but only a North American side event, making it a bit smaller in scale. Vancouver's event expects close to 5,000 athletes, while Montreal hosted about 12,000. (The next World Outgames will happen in Copenhagen in 2009.)

And Vancouver will take very little funding from government ($300,000 projected at the moment), as opposed to Montreal's primarily government-supported event. Vancouver's new mayor has been elusive about committing any funding at all, leaving the province as the only sure government source.

That said, Montreal had also taken little government funding until a last-minute plea to help solve a "cash-flow problem."

Organizers also claim that they will save money on the opening and closing ceremonies. GLISA's Greg Larocque explains that "these have come to be large extravaganzas that may jeopardize the financial success of an event." They plan to have a scaled-down "Opening Banquet," and a small closing ceremony, which will concentrate more on rewarding participants than spectacular and expensive displays for tourists.

The organizing body of the event is spearheaded by Boychuk, who is best known for bringing the Pride Society out of a massive debt during his term as president of the Vancouver Pride Society. To do this, he relied mostly on corporate sponsorship, which changed the scope and feel of the Pride Festival. The Outgames will likely follow the same route, as it takes place in the week leading up to Pride.

According to Boychuk and Larocque, "There will be direct sponsorship both of the overall Outgames and of specific events, such as the sporting events. A sponsorship kit is being worked on that will allow partnerships with both the larger corporate sponsors and the sponsors who have worked with specific groups locally." This strategy may provide much-needed funding, but will the large number of sponsors start to wear on members of the gay community?

"With the event happening right around Pride, I think they've saturated that market already," points out Chris Shaw. "Vancouver is already very culturally aware about gay rights. I don't think the Outgames will do much to increase this."

Awareness raising opportunity

But how culturally aware are we, when men are still brutally beaten for holding hands with their boyfriends in the West End, and Jordan Smith's jaw was broken in three places in a September incident?

"Sure, there is still gay bashing, but it makes headlines because it's the exception rather than the rule," said Shaw, after reconsidering his statement. "Is one more week really going to change the minds of the skinheads who do it? They're preaching to the choir. It seems silly to think we'll change downtown Vancouver. Try taking it to Surrey, where it's needed! (Surrey Mayor) Dianne Watts seems to be spending money like mad anyway. Pitch it to her. Hell, take it to Calgary, if you're going to increase awareness."

Boychuk laughed in response to this, pointing out Calgary's role in hosting the previous North American Outgames. "They've done that," he said.

And he pointed out that the Outgames will be raising awareness throughout the Lower Mainland, holding events in Richmond, Whistler, and yes, Surrey.

Targeting gay and lesbian buyers

Calgary's 2007 Outgames had trouble finding corporate sponsors who saw risk in allying their brands with the event. Yet there was still a huge emphasis on exploiting the LGTB community as a new target market.

One marketing firm's study, "Calgary Outgames: A Research Legacy" devotes many pages to ways Calgary could become a more liveable place for the LGBTQ community. But the main focus is clear: tapping into the growing market of double-income gay and lesbian couples with a lot of expendable income.

"Too much corporate presence waters down what we're really about," worries Jamie Lee Hamilton, a local politician and advocate for the LGBT community in the Downtown Eastside. She points out that the Gay Games in Vancouver in 1990 was not heavily backed by corporations. "We have to wonder, who is going to gain from the Outgames?"

Those sponsors can be fickle. CityTV bailed as a sponsor for Vancouver's Pride Festival in 2007, when they were told they could no longer hand things out to parade-goers, and when they decided that there were "just too many sponsors."

And some worry the emphasis on gay buying power risks leaving behind the often-ignored low-income part of the community. "If there's no acknowledgement of issues like queer homelessness, it's insulting," says Hamilton. "They're inviting people to come and play and spend money, and here we have a queer community centre at Davie and Bute that's not even open. I have no problems with the Outgames themselves, but we should be pumping more money into social justice."

In a previous interview, Boychuk declared the Outgames to be "an Olympic-sized opportunity [that] could really help fatten the pockets of local businesses and help keep Vancouver in the global spotlight." Judging from a scan of Boychuck's previous remarks to other media, he tends to concentrate on the business potential of the event, with far fewer quotes about the human rights conference, the potential for local athletes, or sports.

Take a queer jock to dinner

Olympics critic Chris Shaw, too, places the focus on whether the Outgames will make money or not, and who might get stuck with the bill. "Where do I start? I say, if they're paying for the games with no public money, and eliminating the security apparatus of the Olympics, then fine, fill your boots."

The Outgames will officially begin filling its boots in late July of 2011.

Upfold is among those hoping other gains are achieved as well. "I think the Outgames have potential, but I really hope that our community is starting to ask questions now, about where these events are being held, what communities are involved, and how we can improve these communities rather than simply make money from them.

"I was talking to a friend who was in Vancouver for the Gay Games in 1990. He said he was on the Skytrain, and some straight men started accosting a transgendered woman in a pink jumpsuit, saying, 'Oh, so you have your own faggot Olympics now?' Three large men from a gay bodybuilding team stood up to the man and said, 'Yes we do, do you have a problem with that?' The man sat down immediately, and the entire Skytrain, full of participants and spectators for the Gay Games, began an impromptu singing of 'Celebrate Good Times.' These events are amazing when you look at the potential for happenings like this."

Most of the Outgames events will be free to view at venues throughout the Lower Mainland. And anyone interested in supporting the queer community outside the structure of corporate sponsorship might consider taking an athlete out for a meal and a beer. They will be the primary funders of the 2011 Outgames.

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