~Feast Festival

There are moves afoot to have a gay community centre in Adelaide. Cut by the loss of its only gay pub (not all gays like sleazy dancing till 5am, apparently, so Mars alone doesn't cut it) Adelaide's gay community is calling for a physical place to call their own. 

In the Advertiser Review yesterday, 15/11/2008, Margie Fischer, founder of Adelaide's popular Feast Festival, is quoted as saying, "If we do it really well, it can be an international model- we also want it to be a tourist attraction and a destination." While I'm obviously more than happy to support a gay community centre, the Feast Festival, Quench and dedicated gay pubs (or not, as the case may be), I'm disturbed by this tendency in Adelaide to describe any potential new development as a "tourist attraction". An international model, sure. But to describe a gay community centre as a tourist attraction is a bit of a stretch, don't you think? I mean, how many tourists are going to add Adelaide to their list on the basis of a gay community centre? Not in numbers that qualify it as a tourist attraction. 

I mean, on that basis, the fact that I am going to Iserlohn in northern Germany to visit my host family from student exchange makes them a tourist attraction. Do they deserve a marketing budget to entice me there more often?

By all means, improve community infrastructure in Adelaide but see it for what it is: community services for those who live here. Adelaide needs to get over its obsession with being seen as a world-class city. But that is a post for another day.