Press

EVENT CONTACT:
Michael Bath, Special Events Manager
305.576.5010
mbath@theTaskForce.org

New dates are March 2-7

MIAMI, Nov. 23 — The National Gay and Lesbian Task Force announced today that the 2011 Winter Party Festival, originally scheduled for March 9-13, will now be rescheduled for March 2-7. The change in date was deemed necessary following the announcement last Tuesday that a major Miami event that draws an estimated 100,000 people had scheduled its 2011 event on dates that overlapped Winter Party.

"We have been publicizing the dates of the 2011 Festival since March," said Russell Roybal, deputy executive director of external relations at the Task Force, "so the last thing we wanted to do was move the dates and inconvenience our guests who have already started to make their plans. However, we had more than one venue pull out of the Festival to be a part of the larger event, and we got word that the room rates at South Beach hotels were starting to skyrocket. We quickly realized that there was no way we could guarantee our guests the magical experience they expect from Winter Party Festival if the other event was happening at the same time."

Roybal said his staff first tried to persuade the other event to consider rescheduling. When it became clear that this was not an option, the Task Force contacted its contracted venues to explore the possibility of moving Winter Party Festival.

"We are very grateful to our host hotel, the Doubletree Surfcomber, and our other partners who were committed to being part of the Festival regardless of the circumstances," said Roybal, "and we appreciate their willingness to work with us on making the necessary adjustments. This was a challenging situation, but we know in the end our guests will benefit from the change."

The Task Force is currently contacting those who purchased tickets or booked hotel rooms at the Doubletree Surfcomber to explain the reasons for the rescheduling.

More than 10,000 people from around the world attend Winter Party Festival, one of the country's premier LGBT fundraising events. Two-thirds of the net proceeds from the festival are distributed to the Miami-Dade LGBT community through a granting program administered by the Miami Foundation (formerly the Dade Community Foundation), while the remaining one-third of the proceeds benefit the Task Force.

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The mission of the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force is to build the grassroots power of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community. We do this by training activists, equipping state and local organizations with the skills needed to organize broad-based campaigns to defeat anti-LGBT referenda and advance pro-LGBT legislation, and building the organizational capacity of our movement. Our Policy Institute, the movement’s premier think tank, provides research and policy analysis to support the struggle for complete equality and to counter right-wing lies. As part of a broader social justice movement, we work to create a nation that respects the diversity of human expression and identity and creates opportunity for all. Headquartered in Washington, D.C., we also have offices in New York City, Los Angeles, Miami, Minneapolis and Cambridge.