Add one more reversal to this season of reversals regarding plans for gay-pride celebrations in Seattle. First it was the downtown Pride Parade, which in recent weeks was off and then back on again after its organizers declared, and then undeclared, that they were filing for bankruptcy. Now the postparade celebration at Seattle Center, which was cancelled after losing $100,000 last year, is back on, but under new management.
On Wednesday, May 9, local promoter Egan Orion, 35, announced that he has secured the Center's Fisher Pavilion, and adjacent lawns, for what he is calling PrideFest. Egan's event will be a scaled-down version of last year's celebration at the Center, which involved the nonprofit group Seattle Out and Proud renting out the entire Center facility. Dave Heurtel, spokesman for Seattle Center, confirmed that Egan had entered into an agreement to use a portion of the Center's grounds after the June 24 downtown Pride Parade, but he said the new event would be "completely different" from the money-losing event put on last year.
Egan agreed, and said he was inspired to step forward after earlier plans for an event at the Center collapsed two weeks ago.
"I'm not trying to be a hero here," Egan told The Stranger. "But in the aftermath of the Out and Proud debacle at the Center, it was clear that there was no organization that was going to come in and pick up the pieces and throw an event after the parade at the Seattle Center. What was going to happen? A parade downtown with nothing at all at the Center? Pride Sunday is too important to the community to just leave it at that."
Egan says he's secured Los Angeles DJ Brian Pfeifer to play his event, which will run from noon to 6:00 p.m. He's also working to add several "diva-type" performers and political speakers. There will be food vendors, a beer garden, booths for gay organizations, and a number of big-name sponsors, he says. Egan hasn't rented the Center's fountain, which became a popular dance spot at last year's postparade celebration, but the fountain, which is right outside Fisher Pavilion, is open to the public. Heurtel, the spokesman for the Center, confirmed that Pride celebrants would be allowed to enjoy the fountain again this year.
A former Microsoft graphic designer, Egan believes he has found the solution to the problem of making a Pride celebration successful at Seattle Center: taking it out of the hands of a nonprofit run by volunteers and putting it in the hands of people with business and party-promoting experience. With the help of some local businessmen, including at least one fellow Microsoftie, Egan has already put down $5,500 to secure Fisher Pavilion and the nearby lawns, and is ready to cover the additional $20,000 in expenses he expects the event to incur.
"When it's coming out of your pocket, you're going to make decisions that are much smarter," he told The Stranger.
Members of Out and Proud are supporting Egan's efforts, said Troy Campbell, the spokesman for the group.
"I've been to many of Egan's events," Campbell said. "He always does a great job. If there's someone up to it to pull this off, it would be him."
Where does this leave the very fluid plans for Pride Weekend's major events?
At 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, June 23, there will be a parade along Broadway, organized by the Capitol Hill LGBT Community Center. There will be an organized celebration on the Hill after that, and likely the annual Dyke March that evening as well. On Sunday, June 24, there will be another parade, also at 11:00 a.m., organized by Out and Proud, along Fourth Avenue in downtown. After that, there will be Egan's PrideFest at Seattle Center, and after that, there will parties downtown and on the Hill.
It's not quite the seamless progression of events that one would hope to have for Pride Weekend. There will still be two competing parades, and two competing celebrations, held on two different days and organized by two rival factions of the Pride planning processâwhich is an unstable state of affairs, and not what Seattle City Council Members Tom Rasmussen and Sally Clark were hoping for when they called both parade factions down to City Hall on Friday, May 4, for a meeting intended to bring the two groups together. (The meeting ended with both groups claiming to be working together but sticking to their plans to hold rival parades.) But perhaps this year's Pride Weekend will finally settle the question of which paradeâdowntown or Capitol Hillâthe gay community prefers, and lead to future Pride Weekends with one parade and a more sensible, workable progression of events.
For his part, Egan said he plans to make his Center event a fixture of Pride Weekend.
"It will make a profit," he assured The Stranger. "My intention is to do this competently, and to create a festival that is not only good for the community but is solvent, so it's got money in the bank so it can be done year after year." 
