Subject: Rainbow Celebration Concert Cancelled
From: "Shelly Roberts" <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 6 Jul 1999 22:50:11 +0000

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.