SF Spent Almost $200K on Pink Party

The city of San Francisco spent almost $200,000 on the Pink Party in the Castro neighborhood last June, according to data recently made available.

The amount spent for the June 27 festival is more than twice what the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence spent on Pink Saturday last year. Citing concerns over violent incidents in recent years, the Sisters announced in February that they wouldn't produce their event this year, leaving the city to put on the Pink Party in its place.

After the Sisters, who had spent about $80,000 in 2014, announced their withdrawal, gay Supervisor Scott Wiener, whose District 8 includes the Castro, asked the LGBT Community Center to help produce the party. Many felt that revelers would swarm the Castro on the night before the city's Pride parade regardless of whether there was an official event.

The center recently analyzed the Pink Party figures and provided them to the Bay Area Reporter.

Asked about the city's $188,143 in Pink Party expenses, Wiener said, "Managing a street fair with hundreds of thousands of people and doing it in a way to keep it safe is not cheap, and the Sisters, even with all the volunteer support that they had, still had to spend quite a bit of money to run the event. ... We made a decision when we asked the center to step in and manage" the party that "we were going to provide strong support, particularly around increased security."

One of the Sisters has said that city officials had declined her request for financial support for security. Wiener has said that the city doesn't typically directly fund events such as Pink Saturday.

According to the data the center provided, "Public safety/Logistics" which was comprised of money for police, security, medical responders, and similar expenses were the biggest single cost at $45,827.

Last year, the Sisters spent about $18,000 on "paid security," a budget document from the group says.

No major violent incidents were reported this year. That may have been related as much to earlier hours than it was to any boost in security. The June party started at 3 p.m. and ended at 8, hours earlier than previous years.

Planners succeeded in putting on "a safe event, a fun event, and I think it creates a good foundation for the future," Wiener said.

After security, the next biggest expense this year was for the event producer. For decades, the Sisters had produced the event for free, but the city paid E. Cee Productions about $38,000 for its work. E. Cee's Eliote Durham, Pink Party's executive producer, declined to comment for this story.

Rebecca Rolfe, the center's executive director, said one factor behind the increased expenses was a lack of volunteers.

"The organizing period was short this year since we came into the process so late," Rolfe said. Many people had already committed to other events Pride weekend and "we definitely had a difficult time finding volunteers."

According to the data Rolfe provided, the center provided 47 of the 100 volunteers who helped the day of the event. Community partner organizations provided the other 53.

More than 60,000 people attended the party, the center's data says, and Rolfe estimated gate donations were $60,000.

Festival organizers distributed $14,581.25 to the 13 beneficiaries this year.

There were also costs for the Pink Party that the city didn't cover. Rolfe said in an email that she didn't have immediate access to those figures, "but they are not huge."

Event's Future

Plans for the 2016 party are unclear.

Wiener said, "The city will still be very involved," and he will work with the center and city departments "to see what the next steps will be."

The hope is for Pink Party to eventually be "financially self-sustaining," Wiener said.

Rolfe said, "We haven't made a final decision" whether to be involved in 2016.

The Sisters are considering doing multiple Pride weekend events in the Bay Area but outside San Francisco next year, said Sister Selma Soul, chair of the drag nun group's board.

The Sisters are "considering some scaled back things," said Soul, who's also known as James Bazydola.