Serafemme Recap

Hanifah recently corrected me, apparently it was when she and I were in Seattle that the first mention of Serafemme was made, at that time "The Untitled Gay Women of Color Music Festival". I'd originally thought it came up when I visisted her in NY for the holidays, the idea had been in my head then but I hadn't brought up to her as a topic of conversation yet.

Hanifah was extremely excited when I brought up the idea of the festival. I told her I envisioned it as an outdoor gathering showcasing women from all over the country and that it would represent women of all colors - asian, latin, native american, middle eastern and everything in between. On the plane ride home, I came up with a preliminary list of artists whom I either knew personally or who I'd seen perform locally. I recently came across that list from the plane and of those listed, three of the artists made it to the final schedule.

The first thing I needed to do for the festival was find a location. I found a list of all the parks in the area, spoke to the Department of Parks and Recreation, found out how much it would cost to get a permit, all that but ultimately I decided that a park wasn't going to be very conducive to the festival because I wouldn't be able to hold the festival the way I envisioned it in a public park. After weeks of trying to find a park, I was about to give up on the festival taking place this year, it was already March and I didn't have a location.

I remember the moment the idea for The One Naitonal Gay and Lesbian Archives popped into my head, the moment I thought it it just felt right. I worried about the location in that it was further away than I would have liked but it was perfect in its own way. I approached the Archives about doing the festival there in mid-March and they were receptive and excited about it. A week later, on my way to Palm Springs for the Dinah Shore weekend,I received the call from the Archives giving the thumbs up.

So, here we...did I say, we?? *I* am at the end of March trying to put together a festival in 90 days. Okay, with the first major stress of location under my belt, I had about 5,000 other stress elements to deal with. I knew nothing about staging or amplifiers, equalizers or anything and I didn't even know who to ask.

So, I started making phone calls and I sent out a press release soliciting artists and vendors for the festival. Packages and emails came in expressing interest and the festival started to come together piece by piece. The June L. Mazer Archives solicited my help with something and during our meeting I mentioned the festival in passing. The Mazer Archives jumped on board immediately and by the end of the week they lent their sponsorship. A few weeks later, GLAAD lent theirs. When I wasn't dealing with sponsorship and vendors, I was fielding requests from artists to be in the festival and submitting requests to artists to lend their talent. Because the festival was filling a void in the community, support for it was great and no one I approached about performing in the festival said no. No one. Some of the artists were even active in the execution of the festival.

Securing artists and vendors, sponsorship, promotion, logistics (staging & sound equipment), tables and chairs, decoration, etc. etc. - it all needed to be taken care of in a matter of 90 days not to mention the issue of the after party. This was in addition to helping out with L.A.'s Black Gay Pride and maintaining my life. Stressful, yes, but everything came together with almost Divine coordination. There were key players who served as sounding bords - D'Lo, Hanifah and Latrice - but I ultimately had to make the executive decisions and I wanted to make sure Serafemme was something not only I could be proud of but also the artists who were flying in to perform and the women who patronized the event.

The one compliment I heard about Serafemme over and over again was how great each and every one of the performers were, I agree with that. I was as excited to see each performer go on as I was for the audience to see talent they'd never seen before. A few of the performers have been invited back for next year and each has readily accepted!

The after party hit a snag the week of the event but thankfully The Girls take everything in stride and showed up en masse to La Di Da who was more than ready to receive us! That after party was exceptional and there were several women who not only closed out the place but who were still at La Di Da when I was pulling off at 3AM! Perhaps the best part of the evening was the public wedding proposal (or rather, the fact that she said yes!). I'm pleased to know that years from now in remembering the moment of their proposal they can say it was at an Out&About party. *insert big grin*