OUTART chair responds to Paul Bashline

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		OUTART chair responds to Paul Bashline xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

The following is an e-mail by OUTART board chair Tony Francis
(Posted 2-28-01)

Paul,

I appreciate your email to GayOKC.com concerning the cancellation of OUTART. It was a very difficult decision to make especially as we had made some of the plans for the 2001 festival. The press release posted on GayOKC.com did not and could not go into all the ramifications concerning the decision we had to make.

For instance, your point about Corporate Sponsorship. The companies we contacted - Sundance, Miller Beer, E! Entertainment, American Airlines, The Advocate, Absolute, RSVP, Planet Out and so on - all had minimum sponsorship requirements that we could not meet. Such as minimum attendance of 2000 people. Our figures were below that approx. 780 in 1999 and 530 in 2000. In regard to films, as you are aware the average cost of the movie was $650 plus $180 shipping. Paul your organization was very generous in paying for movies both years and those were the least expensive at approx. $400 each. We lost $3,200 in 1999 on movies and $4,000 in 2000, thanks to a private donation we were able to cover the costs. However that is not the end of the story. The theaters also required a certain box office and we were unable to show last year at Windsor Hills because we were "too small" and Brixton's west coast management decided that they did not want to pursue future festivals for the same reason (highest ticket sales were 68 seats in 2000). We have been turned down by every other movie house in this city. It is financially impossible to show 35mm movies outside of a movie theater. So if the festival had continued this year it would have been without films.

That leaves us with theater productions and art. The music again did not produce enough numbers to cover the cost and forced us into a church due to sound and other space being way too expensive, a problem the choruses are facing for their own seasons. The theater has been a success especially in 2000 when we could serve alcohol. We have left the door open to produce a theater production and maybe an art show every other year in the future.

Having been involved in community work for 25 years and successfully launched several projects from the ground floor, I understand your feelings, however from the start we had refused to put on some hodgepodge second rate festival and that is why we originally broke away from the organization we started with in 1997. To make something that the community can be proud of and is not cheap and hidden in some dive takes certain resources. Had we seen an increase in the interest of the community we may have continued but with all venue attendance dropping (except theater) plus the private financier could not provide funds in future years it was voted on that we take a second look at what to do. As it says in the press statement the name OUTART has been kept and may be used for theater productions.

I should add that before making the final decision many community members were polled on why they did not attend or what could be done differently. As far as movies the main reason given was "will be available for rent soon and rather do that" and of course you know one of the comments was "Miss America Pageant was more interesting" as that came from someone in your organization. Paul, the financial books, meeting minutes, sponsor letters etc. are all available for any member of the public to view and I feel sure, as a business person, if you went over them you would come to the same conclusions that the board did.

Tony Francis.

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