Not much information available but it looks like the once popular annual-ish HIV/AIDS fundraiser, THE SEATTLE RED DRESS PARTY will return in 2024. A Facebook invite for the event, scheduled for Saturday, May 25, 2024 at the Block 41 event space in Belltown popped up the other day with not a lot of information other than “save the date!” and the announcement that it will be the “last” Seattle Red Dress Party.
From the invite:
“Five years after our last Seattle Red Dress Party, this legendary event returns, and it’s the last one we plan on doing. We will definitely go out in style! Stay tuned for more information. Ticket sales to start January 2024, but you can start looking for your red dress today! We can’t wait to celebrate with all of you.”
It’s apparently being produced by Egan Orion’s PrideFest group who have been responsible for the last couple iterations of the gala which was once a major event on the city’s LGBTQ+ social calendar for many years in the 2000s and up through the early 2010s but as attendance began to fall and the event became more and more difficult to successfully produce, it began to shrink in size and significance going from being held in the huge Fremont Studios space in Fremont with nationally known talent, to much smaller venues with less starry line-ups in recent years.
It could also be argued that the event has “shrunk” as HIV AIDS decreased in significance for the LGBTQ+ community with the huge advances in care and treatment. While older members of the community might treasure the event as honoring the decades where HIV/AIDS was a daily part of our lives, it has less meaning for younger generations born after the peak years of the epidemic.
The last few Red Dress events produced by Orion also used the event to raise funds for his own PrideFest non-profit which rubbed some in the community the wrong way, arguing that the event should only be used for HIV/AIDS fundraising. And, the whole “dress” issue continued to annoy some members of the community who didn’t want to wear them…to an event called the Red DRESS Party.
Insert eye roll.
We’re assuming more info will be forthcoming but for now, this is all we have. The link to the http://www.seattlereddress.org/ indicates the site is dead/up for sale. Which is rather apt.
About the Author: Michael Strangeways
