A fair day for all
A gay-owned business excluded from Fair Day because of New Mardi Gras sponsorship restrictions has been invited back in a last minute reprieve.
Out and About Travel had paid for full-page advertisements to appear in this week’s gay press to protest the sponsorship arrangements that exclude some businesses in favour of sponsors.
Flight Centre, one of 12 corporate sponsors with non-competitive rights, dropped the restrictions on Monday and left it to NMG’s discretion as to who could take part in Fair Day this Sunday.
Flight Centre understands that Fair Day is an integral community event and in the spirit of participation you [NMG] have our full support to include organisations that will bring value to the day, the sponsor said in a written statement. Out and About Travel’s stall was approved the same day.
NMG chair David Imrie said the organisation would continue to use non-competitive clauses in sponsor contracts.
Without granting certain exclusive rights to sponsors there is limited value in sponsorship, so we would have no sponsors, Imrie told Sydney Star Observer. He expected the NMG’s relationship with Flight Centre to continue.
NMG’s profit last year was $483,650, and the total income from the 12 sponsorships was $581,854 for the same period.
If NMG didn’t have corporate sponsorship, we wouldn’t be able to run Fair Day unless we started charging admission fees. It’s the large sponsors who are in fact enabling us to keep Fair Day an open community event, Imrie said.
Businesses were not the only groups banned under the non-competitive clauses this year. Gay and Lesbian Travel Australia (GALTA), a non-profit network of GLBT operators, initially had its Fair Day application rejected. They were later invited to share Flight Centre’s stall. GALTA declined to comment on the issue.
Out and About Travel’s Reece Farmilo, who is a member of GALTA, said the restrictions went against the community spirit of Mardi Gras.
If people don’t see us there, and all they’re seeing is Flight Centre, they’ll think we didn’t want to be involved. Well that’s not true, we want to be part of it, so we needed to let the community know that it’s not a true representation, he said.
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I say boycot Out Travel. That a gay man owns the BUSINESS doesn’t automatically earn the right to support from the gay community. Too many business owners expect a helping hand from the community just because they are “gay owned and operated”. When Out Travel actually supports the community they deserve the community’s support. Merely sleeping with people of the same sex and pacing ads in gay papers simply isn’t enough. I for one hope Flight Centre and Mardi Gras ban Out Travel from Fair Day forever unless they place a “full page ad” apologising and offering to sponsor Mardi Gras. Too many “gay owned and operated” businesses do nothing more than milk the community. Back when the president of Mardi Gras was a real estate agent, I used to think he too was milking the community but I was wrong. I look at all he has done in the last year, all the work he has done for free, with his own time and his own money, and I see what real true community spirit is. His speech today at Fair Day put a lump in my throat. Thank you David Imrie.
Wow I must confess you make some very trncnhaet points.
I dont know who those models were from flight centre at fair day strutting around in their tigh black speedos but they were hot!!!!
Im sure they will drum up alot of business!
If anyone has their number’s, please let me know!!
I think you are missing the point they arn’t trying to muscle in on anything, they were simply excluded due to ‘Rights’ Take a step back and realise that a small business is in no position to take on the goliath advertising budgets of companies such as Flight Centre. I would refer to their annual report. http://www3.flightcentre.com.au/corporate/results/fiscal2009/081219_Results_Guidance_19_Dec_08.pdf Small business has no chance of surviving if they are excluded from an event due to rights management from larger companies. How is that fair competition?
I think it is disgusting that Out Travel would hold New Mardi Gras to ransom by taking out media ads to protest.
Mardi Gras are between a rock and a hard place. They have massive costs to stage events that seem to rise and rise each year (just look at the recent music industry’s grab for a slice of every party ticket). They also stage Fair Day and the Parade that we all expect to remain free but which in reality cost a fortune these days with fencing, security, insurance etc etc.
While Mardi Gras is ultimately about the community, the reality is that the costs must be born somewhere and currently its the sponsors that are saving the day. Out Travel is at the end of the day a business and can put forward a sponsorship proposal at any stage. If another competing company such as Flight Centre is prepared to help fund Mardi Gras so that we can keep it free and have a quality festival then I would support it any day over a company that wants to use undue pressure to muscle its way in.
Mardi Gras might very well be a community organization but without sponsorship it would not exist at all. I booked my last holiday through Out Travel but my next one will be through Flight Centre. Thanks Flight Centre for supporting Mardi Gras and shame on you Out for your anti-Mardi Gras tactics.
Here we go again. This is where it went terribly wrong last time with restrictive lockouts on sponsorship. The entire planet and its audience is clearly moving to an open media and market model and to try and step back through time and pretend that sponsorship and media restrictions will work is simply ridiculous.
Mardi Gras is, the last time I looked, a community organisation that is supposed to be inclusive.
It’s absolutely poor form for a BUSINESS to threaten to take out full page ads in the SSO to complain about being excluded from Fair Day. Why don’t you use that bloody money and actually sponsor the darn thing, rather than using the media to hold a gun to a community organisation’s head? Shame on you.
And good on Flight Centre for sponsoring Fair Day whilst still extending a hand of friendship to its competitors in the spirit of Mardi Gras.
At the end of the day, I think that Mardi Gras should negotiate more nuanced sponsorship deals if possible, so that non-commercial GLBT organisations or GLBT small businesses are not excluded from Fair Day.
But if you can afford to bloody buy full page ads in the SSO to whinge, then don’t play the victim card. Put your money where your mouth is. Mardi Gras does not owe your profit-making any favours.
And I am usually the type that bags Mardi Gras for over-commercialising itself, but this is just appalling…