Hello I'm Rich Brown and this is my personal website and blog. I'm just your simple, average, down to earth, professional, out gay man and aspiring circuit boy, living in Phoenix, Arizona with a few things to say while trying to find my place among all the scary, conservative, religious nuts in this sick and twisted world.
Tuesday, August 07, 2007
Circuit Evolution
As someone who is rather new to the Circuit, with the White Party Palm Springs 2006 being our first official circuit party weekend, all my friends and I seem to hear from the older crowd these days is how the Circuit is dying. The tough part is that the veteran Circuit Boys have created such a feeling of false nostalgia for the Circuit newbies to base our experiences on, it makes it difficult for us believe that any event we attend can possibly be as good as it used to be in the 'good old days.'
While this may indeed be true, those of us who are new to the Circuit still seem to be having an amazing time at these events and are planning more and more events each year. I’m sure much of our excitement stems from the newness of it all, but we’ve seen many of our other younger friends becoming more interested in and traveling to the parties lately where as this just wasn’t the case in years past. Most of my friends are in their late 20’s to 30’s and while in the past we’ve grown up hearing of the Circuit Parties, we’ve all just become more comfortable with our ability to now handle the cost of travel and admission to these expensive long weekends.
In just a year’s time I’ve noticed that attendance to some of the same events compared to last year has been smaller, but maybe it’s our individual growth and increased overall comfort level because I’ve personally had a better time at the parties and met more people this year than last. My friends all finally feel like we’re starting to meet some great new friends around the country with whom we’re keeping in touch with.
One of my friends and past coworkers is what my best friends have termed a ‘Legacy Circuit Boy’. He and his partner started going to the original circuit parties in their late 20’s and now they’re both closely pushing 50. I’ve talked to them about this in great detail and while they still have many fond memories regarding their heyday, they simply have a great circle of friends these days and have outgrown their need or interest in the pure party only weekends. Over the past few years with the rise in their income levels, they’ve moved on to more expensive group trips such as the Atlantis European cruises, which they say still gives them a chance to attend a few parties, but doesn’t focus primarily on just the party itself. Their group of friends still attends the Zoo Party in San Diego as their only single party event just to rekindle for one night the feeling they had in past years. When I tell them of our plans to attend these long party weekends they like to give us helpful tips and reminisce about their past experiences, but have no real interest in attending themselves and simply say "thinking of that anymore just makes us tired." It almost feels to me like it’s a changing of the guard with their time in the Circuit coming to an end while ours is just beginning.
While I do see that many of the parties are coming to an end, and many of the smaller cities unable or unwilling to host these parties anymore, I really do believe that it’s an evolution of things and more of a progression rather than an extinction. As when any group of products reach a level of market saturation, some of the less popular and/or profitable ones inevitably die off. It’s just economics. We are still seeing steady attendance and even some growth in some of the parties which indicates that the promoters just have to find the right mix of things such as price, product and quality to attract the desired crowd.
While many people might not want to admit this, we are reaching a generational gap these days with the newbies to the Circuit being almost 20 years younger the veterans. Based on this gap a one size fits all style for the parties simply isn’t going to work anymore. The older crowd favors a different style of music then the younger crowd and the overall interest in the types of parties is even different. This isn’t’ a bad thing, it just happens. For the first time in our history we have different generations of gay men who are living out and open lives, partying and experiencing life and we’re trying to deal with it by lumping us all together simply as ‘circuit boys’ In the hetro world you would not necessarily expect someone who is 25 to have the same interests in music and entertainment that someone who is 45 does, so I think we need to apply that mentality to ourselves as we move forward.
While I personally can appreciate the nostalgia of the past decade or two of Circuit Parties, my friends and I are creating our own experiences, attending the events we enjoy the most, trying to get more of our younger friends interested, and simply having the time of our lives as we travel along this journey. Cheers!
