From: "Shelly Roberts" Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 22:50:11 +0000 Subject: Rainbow Celebration Concert Cancelled FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: K. Snyder 404-377-4404 Tuesday, July 6, 1999 RAINBOW CELEBRATION CONCERT FALLS VICTIM TO LACK OF VENTURE CAPITAL Atlanta - Citing lack of sufficient venture capital available to almost all entertainment enterprises, Rainbow Celebration Company President, Shelly Roberts, today announced her decision to close down The Rainbow Celebration Concert, which had been scheduled for October, 2000. "This was a high cost event with an exceptionally strong business plan, but the necessary venture capital just wasn1t there for us when or where we needed it." Said Roberts. "Even though the general community response to this high-ticket event was extremely good, the financial community considered it very high risk. Unless your last name is Spielberg, there aren1t a lot of VC checks being written for entertainment right now." The Rainbow Celebration was originally conceived as a national event to honor gay, lesbian, bi, transgender, and ally performers, and to celebrate the outstanding accomplishments of the combined Rainbow Community. It was intended to be three non-political days of music and entertainment covering the full spectrum of genres from country to classical, reggae to rock. Roberts said that the community response to the concept was phenomenal, excited at the prospect of a celebration gathering, and extremely supportive. "We were really all set to roll this out, we had producers, performers, operations, and logistics and technical people all ready to go as soon as we could pull the money trigger. The initial set up costs were to have been covered by venture capital at about 15% of the original 60 million-dollar budget. The remaining balance would have been picked up through financial institutions issuing bridge loans secured to direct ticket sales. It was much like the model used to finance the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta. Without that initial investment, there just wasn1t the wherewithal to continue. The concert, beyond being a wonderful way for us all to say thank you to each other, was always built on a solid business model, to see if we could do good and do well at the same time." Exercising her "Better part of valor" philosophy, Roberts, along with her executive committee, made the call to pull the plug early rather than try to mount an ill-funded, or inadequate event. When asked if there were any regrets, and if there were future plans for another celebration event, Roberts replied, "I have absolutely no regrets about trying this. It was always a very big windmill to tilt at. Both the Atlanta and national communities who rallied around the idea helped me make a very valiant run at this. I1ve made wonderful friends in the attempt, and maybe planted a seed that we need to stop and smell our own roses sometimes, that we really do have something to celebrate. We get so saturated with bad news all the time, we also need to focus on what we1ve done well. "I hope people will still hold the dates - October 13-15, 2000, for their own personal and organizational celebrations. We accomplished an enormous amount during the "Gay 901s" and I for one am proud of what we did 'in concert' even if we each have to hum the tunes at home by ourselves." Roberts, who moved to Atlanta for the express purpose of creating The Rainbow Celebration Concert, committed her own personal resources to the effort, and pursued the concert plans full time for over 18 months. She said that she will continue to write her bi-weekly humor/observation column, Roberts' Rules, and has a new book, BABY DYKES, coming out in the fall of 2000 from Alyson. "But other than that, I1m going to take the year off from GLBT causes. I gave at the office. And the house. And in my sleep. Now it1s time for some personal renewal." [END] Shelly Roberts is the author of the Robert's Rules of Lesbian . . .(Living, Dating & Breakups) series of books and calendars from Spinsters Ink. She currently, and for the foreseeable future, resides in Atlanta, Georgia with her partner Karen, and two dowager felines, Emily the primary cat, and Alexis (Allie), the backup cat.