SOUTH FLORIDA BLADE

One Mighty Weekend says goodbye to Disney Chisholm event moved out of park; Gay Days to continue
By DMITRY RASHNITSOV
MAY. 7, 2009

More than 150,000 people from all over the world are expected to converge on Mickey’s turf during the 19th year of Gay Days at Disney World in Orlando, held this year from June 2-9, according to GayDays.com Vice President Chris Alexander-Manley. The event is billed as the largest GLBT event in Florida.

Because of the large influx of GLBT visitors to the area, many outside promoters lure partiers by producing their own events, most notably “circuit party”-style nightclub gatherings featuring big name DJs and performers. The largest and longest running of these events is “One Mighty Weekend,” produced by Johnny Chisholm, which have traditionally occurred inside the park as well.

In an unexpected snag with this year’s Gay Days celebration, however, Chisholm’s events scheduled for Disney World theme parks were suddenly moved off property.The “Beach Ball,” held on Friday, scheduled to occur at Disney’s Typhoon Lagoon, will be at the Buena Vista Palace hotel’s convention center’s pool area. The Saturday “One Mighty Party,” formerly had at the Disney Studio theme park, was moved to the Gaylord Palms Resort convention center. The Sunday evening “All Stars Deep Blue World” dance party was relocated from Universal Studios, where it was held last year, also to the ballroom of the Buena Vista Palace hotel.

Conflicting reports have surfaced regarding the sudden shift away from the theme parks, which had hosted the parties for most of the past 16 years.Tony Hayden, founder of TheCircuitDog.com and self-proclaimed “watchdog” of the circuit scene, said that Chisholm is not allowed to throw his parties at Disney this year after failing to come up with the necessary cash to make a deposit to hold the venue.“His parties are insulting to the original reputation of the people who founded the circuit parties so many years ago,” Hayden said. “He got all the pieces to the puzzle and within five years completely desecrated the entire franchise.”

Hayden said this is not the first year that Chisholm has encountered problems with Disney.In a letter addressed to Chisholm from 2004 that Hayden provided to South Florida Blade, a Disney employee tells the party promoter that payments from the previous year were not paid on time and, “in addition you seem to be under some misimpression that you have some special or preemptive right to conduct an event at Walt Disney World Resort. We do not have any commitment to contract with you (or Chisholm properties) for the One Mighty Party or for any other event.”Hayden has also reported on his website about Chisholm’s previous problems with investors, include a $2.8 million lawsuit against him for an event in Paris.

Victor Mauro, owner of http://www.justcircuit.com/, which is a sponsor of One Might Weekend, gave a different story: he said that Disney tried to charge Chisholm additional fees this year that he said were unjustified given the amount of money the theme park has made off the GLBT community over the last two decades.“For all the money that is spent during the Gay Day’s week, Disney has not once given back to the community,” he said.

A spokesperson for Disney, Kim Prunty, declined to comment on negotiations with Chisholm. Gay Days at Disney World will continue as planned, however, with more than 100 official and un-official events.Gay Days has not been officially endorsed by Disney, but Alexander-Manley said this is the first year in his organizations history that an attraction has come on as a sponsor of the “Days,” with Blue Man Group and Discovery Cove officially endorsing the event.Those who come to town are asked keep tradition alive by spending the first Saturday at the Magic Kingdom wearing, “something red to be seen.”

In a press release, Chisholm announced that he has reversed his normal “no refund” policy and will offer refunds to individuals who purchased tickets for the original event. Phone calls to Chisholm’s office in Pensacola, his marketing company SPI in New York and Walt Disney were not returned before press time.