by Jessica Carreras
Michigan's LGBT community is buzzing about freshly out country music singer Chely Wright's upcoming appearance at Michigan Pride this Saturday, June 12, where she'll serve as grand marshal and perform a few songs, as well as meet fans and sign her recently released book.
But getting Wright to come to Michigan's Lansing-based LGBT festival wasn't easy – or cheap – and her appearance fills out an entire weekend of performances, activities, parties and, of course, Pride.
Organizers of the weekend had been talking big, but the usual Pride names were simply out of reach financially. "For six months, we had been going back and forth about Kathy Griffin, Wanda Sykes – who could we afford?" explains Michigan Pride Outreach Coordinator Monique Goch. "And when we got the pricing, they were about $100,000. It was just something we couldn't pull off."
But Wright – especially with some haggling of price and backing from Equality Michigan – was within reach, and a perfect fit for Michigan.
"Equality Michigan sponsored a very nice slice of bringing Chely Wright to us," Goch says. "They wanted to be supportive and sponsor Chely because she just came out and it's a struggle within the country music community, and they thought it went hand in hand along with Equality Michigan just coming out with the merger.
"It was really kind of a perfect partnership."
Michigan Pride and Equality Michigan partnered again to build a special float for Wright to ride on during the annual march to the Capitol, set to take place at noon on Saturday. The details are strictly secret, says Goch. "I can tell you that it's a 10-foot object for one part of the trailer and it's going to be completely decked out."
Going all-out seems to be the thing to do for this year's Michigan Pride, which is planning for national media coverage, due to Wright's first-ever public Pride presence.
Their 2010 focus, explains Goch, was vamping up areas of the festival and surrounding events that had been lacking in past Prides. "I looked at what was weak," Goch says. "Our rally was dwindling and our march was pretty much down to nothing. We weren't having a really great representation. So we decided to do a float challenge and get everybody inspired again about coming out and displaying their pride, and also their need for acceptance and diversity. I wanted to make it fun."
And all-ages, too.
Goch says one of the big focuses for this year was adding aspects of Pride that would be kid-friendly. As such, the Diversity Festival – held this year in Burchard Park in Lansing's Old Town district – will include a supervised children's area with a bounce house and carnival games, as well as a rock wall for older kids (and kids at heart) and a special pre-Pride White Party for the 13-18 crowd, held at the Creole Gallery on Friday, June 11.
It's all part of the plan to make Michigan Pride as all-encompassing as possible, both in attendance and in collaboration with other non-profits.
"Michigan Pride felt it was very important to have representation in terms of people of color, our transgender community, our young adult community – we just felt like we needed to go across our community and have everyone represented," Goch stresses. "And you don't find that. That's what it's all about – making sure we're all aware instead of separating us out."
On the collaborative end, Michigan Pride asked for representation at both the festival and the rally from a number of groups, and the response was overwhelming. This year, speakers at the Capitol will include Lansing Mayor (and gubernatorial candidate) Virg Bernero, as well as Myles Curathers of the Black Pride Society and Denise Brogan-Kator and Alicia Skillman, Equality Michigan's board chair and executive director, respectively.
"My big belief is partnership in our community, because we've really broken off. I really wanted to find a way to bring us back together," Goch says. "Everyone is lending a helping hand on how they can participate, whether it be a float or a booth or financial sponsorship. This is kind of a whole new arena for Michigan Pride."
And it's a chance for every organization and every voice to be heard. "This is the capitol city, and if you want to be heard, you need to come to Lansing."
