April 16 marks 100 days out from the opening ceremony of the Second World Outgames in Copenhagen. We’ve gotten a number of requests for information about the event, mostly people wondering how big the event will be. Gerry Hail, a spokesperson for the event, told us yesterday that they have 4,000 registered athletes, and that they’re expecting 6,500 total; That’s down from the 8,000 they were targeting just a couple months ago. Hail said their official registration deadline is May 1; It certainly seems optimistic to think they’ll get 2,500 registered in the final 15 days, but I guess it’s better to be optimistic, or maybe they’ll extend the deadline. He said that registration for aquatics events has been particularly high, since IGLA is having its annual championships in conjunction with the Outgames.
The lower numbers aren’t a big surprise, as the Outgames has to contend with a worldwide recession. My guess is that if the economy was now what it was two years ago, they’d be hitting their projected numbers (which were already refreshingly conservative). It’ll be a fun event regardless of the lower attendance: If you can’t find a way to have fun with 5,000 athletes descending on a beautiful city like Copenhagen with week-long parties and festivities, that’s not really on them.
For the last few months, we’ve been highlighting athletes headed to the Outgames. Our latest featured athletes are an HIV-positive runner and a beautiful ballroom dancer.
on Apr 17th, 2009 at 7:56 pm
I wish this were a united Gay Games effort overcoming the tragicomic fiasco of 2006 I hope the hard work and good will of all involved will not be for naught
on Apr 17th, 2009 at 8:22 pm
It is only a fair question to ask (especially after the Montreal 2006 questionable registration pronouncements preceeding the actual event), that Copenhagen publish differentiated by-sport athletic registrations separate from the political conclave registrations.
IMHO, there is a significant perceptual difference, and it does reflect on the ‘athletic emphasis’ of the event. Montreal purposely mixed the two numbers and the results speak for themselves. Since WWB knew all the possible wrestlers going to Chicago and Montreal, we already knew Montreal’s wrestler numbers were bogus, and by extrapolation, their athletic numbers were as well. As someone deeply involved in the Chicago 2006 registration data base and local city ListServs, I had a very good handle on the NorthAmerican athletic numbers, what they were doing, and where they were going.
If you are going to ask athletes to spend this kind of money for an athletic event, then the by-sport registration numbers need to accurate if you expect promotion by sports leadership. Thankfully the Copenhagen people have been forthcoming with ‘honest’ wrestling numbers, and are working with WWB.
Montreal was disingenuous in their registration announcements, and what happened in wrestling can be verified in the long posts back in 2006. IMHO, that was a marketing trick to get athletes to register only to show up and really find ‘no event’…. unforgiveable if you traveled far and spent a lot of $$.
In wrestling, Chicago had 100 wrestlers/100 matches… a significant achievement by any standard. Montreal had 24 wrestlers/22 matches (4 wrestlers had no matches), something smaller than our recent WWB San Diego Wrestling tournament ( re: http://wrestlerswob.com for results).
WWB is fully supporting Copenhagen, and intends to field a sponsored NorthAmerican team. That is because their leadership is being honest in working -with- us to have the best ‘wrestling’ event we can.