Organizing for the Oaklash Festival always starts around this time of year. As of today, we’re officially 6 months out from our next block party, which means Bea and I need to grab a drink soon and decide what the fuck we’re actually doing before we can even think about putting our applications up online. Who do we want to help host and curate next year’s event? Do we bring back BACKLASH, our band night, or maybe the Oaklash Film Festival for our Friday night kick-off? Where do we want our afterparty to be and what should we do on the Sunday after the block party?
Every year Oaklash is a little different, and I hope it always stays that way. If there’s one thing a festival for queer and trans people should never be it’s stagnant. And one of my proudest achievements so far is how Bea and I have been able to adapt the festival each year to keep this thing growing in new and exciting ways.
2022 was about playing catch up:
We were finally able to do the block party we had been planning since before the pandemic, we made lots of connections in the city of Oakland including the residents and businesses in Old Oakland, and we finally turned a profit after two years of virtual events that put us in the red.
2023 has been about sustainability:
We rented our first office space, we streamlined our block party and created more paid positions on our event team, and as of this October, the Board has officially hired me part time as its Executive Director.
I am so so so so excited to finally get to actually be on payroll for doing this work after 6 years of investing in this dream.
The move for me to step down from the Board Presidency is really part of a more long-term vision for creating room for more leadership at this little queer community led non-profit and it’s already paying off in droves:
Our new Board President Charles Hawthorne has been an amazing ambassador for keeping our work going year-round, including launching the WE RUN THIS!!! block party in partnership with queer-owned bars Nectar Social Club, Sessions, The Hatch, and Amber Lounge on 15th and Franklin during Oakland Pride weekend.
Maha Wam, who has been Oaklash’s Board Secretary since we became our own nonprofit in 2019, spearheaded our Oaklash Skills for Nightlife Accelerator Program (O-SNAP!), mentoring 5 up-and-coming DJs and community organizers who dreamed up their perfect night out together which was way more adorable than any of us could have ever possibly imagined.
And LOTUS BOY, who joined our board last year, just worked with Harddeep Singh to launch our first fiscally sponsored project The BAD Fund, a mutual aid fund that aims to support drag artists in the Bay Area who turn down paid opportunities that do not align with their values, including artists who have committed to the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (which Oaklash has also signed onto as an organization).
This is exactly the kind of work that we imagined Oaklash could do when we decided to become our own 501(c)3, and you know the best part? I haven’t had to take the lead on any of it.
I don’t see my job as Executive Director as being the boss. That’s partly because we don’t have enough money to hire any other staff yet. But it’s mostly because my Board of Directors are some of the coolest, most hard working people currently in nightlife who know that we can dream big without losing the connection to the thing that’s most important to our work: community.
My job is just to make sure that things actually happen. OBSIDIENNE OBSURD wants to do a drag orchestra? We’ll find funding for it. Hollow Eve wants to bring back her Phatima Rude tribute? Sunday May 19th, 2024 — mark your calendars! Beatrix wants to have a gloryhole next year? Maybe save it for the afterparty, but sure, why not!
And who knows? Hopefully someday I will fully step away from this work, and pass Oaklash on to the next generation. But before that happens we need to be sure that we can sustain the work that we’re already doing — deepening our roots with city leaders and business-owners in Oakland, expanding our programs year-round and ensuring everything we do is safe and accessible to new audiences, and finding reliable sources of funding (wink wink, nudge nudge >>) that will let us pay our team better and continue to compensate each and every one of our performers because being an artist in the Bay Area is fucking hard!!!
I’ve been doing drag since 2012 and Bea and I both started performing in the Bay in 2015, which makes us ancient by drag standards. I get so much pride watching the legendary children make a name for themselves in the scene, stand up for what they believe in, and throw parties and pull stunts that we’ll be talking about for decades to come. And I have no doubt that the next group of queers who will inherit what we’re building now is already out there. They’re the whole reason we started this in the first place.
The 2024 Oaklash Festival of Drag and Queer Performance will be Friday May 17 - Sunday May 19th
and will DEFINITELY include our block party in Old Oakland on Saturday May 18th. More details to be announced! Subscribe to our Substack to be the first to know!
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All donations to Oaklash are 501©3 tax deductable to the extent allowed by law. For more information, contact oaklashfestival@gmail.com
Header photo of OBSIDIENNE OBSURD at Oaklash 2023 by Edgar Ruiz