As news of the latest coronavirus has been quickly developing over the past few weeks and days, party hosts, venues, and those who attend them have been having to make some tough choices as to how to respond. Hosts and venues have been taking extra precautions to protect their guests, including some postponing their events indefinitely.
Here at WGP our goal has always been to provide as much info as we have and let our visitors and members know where you can go for more info so that you can make informed decisions yourself on what events to attend or not attend, or in this case what actions to take based on your own situation.
We’ve been spending the past week or so speaking with event hosts and gathering information and have compiled what we have so far together in this blog post. We will continue to update it as we get more information.
Here is what we know so far…
The first point we would like to stress and that we hope everyone will keep in mind is not only how much your actions and the precautions you may or may not take may affect you but also the people around you. From what is known of the virus so far, it affects mostly people over the age of 60 and most of the people who visit our site and attend parties in general tend to be much younger than that, so it’s easy for people to say “eh, even if I do get it, it won’t be much worse than getting the flu.” But keep in mind that even if you yourself may not get very sick from it, you could then be passing it on to other people who in turn will be passing it on to other people and some of those people may get very sick or even die from the virus, and that someone may very well even be someone near and dear to your heart, so if you do attend a party (or any place with people in close proximity to each other) we urge you to take the following precautions:
When you arrive, head straight for a washbasin and thoroughly wash your hands with soap and HOT water for at least 20 seconds (the time it takes to sing “Happy Birthday” twice) to get rid of any bugaboos you might have picked up on the way to the party so you don’t pass it around the crowd
Wash them AGAIN throughout the night between interactions and then AGAIN before you leave so you don’t pass on any bugaboos you might have gotten from the crowd when you go back out into the world. If HOT water is not available, ask for hand sanitizer that is at least 60% alcohol. Most party hosts provide hand sanitizer at their parties. If you don’t know if they do, contact them ahead of time to find out. Some party hosts have already started insisting that their guests take these steps when they arrive and don’t allow them into the play space until they do. We encourage all party hosts and venues to do the same.
If you currently have or have had any cold or flu like symptoms in the past 30 days, don’t go out! Many hosts are now screening their guests and are not allowing those in who have any cold or flu like symptoms, but if you’ve had them in the past 30 days but don’t have them now, you still may be contagious, if not with COVID-19 then, well, with SOMETHING so please do the right thing and just stay at home and jackoff to some group sex porn for a few weeks.
Follow the advice of local health officials.
EVENT AND PARTY SPECIFIC INFORMATION:
Here is what we know so far about the steps being taken by various events and venues to help protect their guests from COVID-19:
MAJOR EVENTS:
THE BLACK PARTY
Saint at Large has announced a new date for this year's Black Party - September 26th.
MIAMI BEACH PRIDE
Per the Miami Beach Pride Website, Pride that was supposed to be taking place March 28th to April 5th is to be "Rescheduled. Stay tuned for new dates."
LOS ANGELES LEATHER PRIDE
The Los Angeles Leather Coalition has postponed the contest, Legion, and Off-Sunset festival. One of the weekend's main parties - Dark Angel hosted by DenLA has also been postponed.
TEXAS BEAR ROUNDUP
"Dallas County has issued an emergency public health declaration with constraints on events and public gatherings over 500 people beginning at 11am on Friday, March 13, 2020. To comply with this declaration, the Dallas Bears Board of Directors have made the difficult decision to cancel Texas Bear Round-Up XXV. https://www.facebook.com/TexasBearRoundup
THE WHITE PARTY
Per the White Party Palm Springs Instagram account, the White Party is being rescheduled from April to October 30th - November 2nd.
CLAW
CLAW is postponed until later this year...
"Hello Friends, The Governor of Ohio has just issued a ban on gatherings of 100 or more. The CLAW Board of Directors is meeting this weekend to discuss next steps, but we fully expect CLAW 20 to be postponed until later this year (target date range of June 15 - October 15) and wanted to provide you with this information as soon as possible. We will be in touch with more information as soon as it is available. We have not updated CLAW's Coronavirus Update page yet but it will be updated shortly - and we will continue to keep this page updated with the most current information available. Thank you for your support! Bob Bob Miller CLAW President and Executive Director"
Other Cancelled events
Elevation Gay Ski Week Mammoth
Western Xposure
CANCELLED Recurring Parties
All California Bars are closed until further notice so any weekly parties that take place in bars in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Palm Springs, or any other area of California are suspended.
All New York Bars and entertainment venues are closed until further notice so all weekly parties at bars and venues such as Paddles and Rainbow Playground are suspended.
We have confirmed that the following weekly or monthly recurring parties are currently suspended in response to the virus:
Finally…
We understand that a situation like this can generate a lot of passionate feelings and responses from “Shut everything down” to “We need to continue to live our lives” and everything in between. We created this site to be a platform for members of our community to not only come for and share information, but also share your own feelings, views, and opinions on parties and anything that might affect our community to help inform others and guide them in their decisions. I encourage our members to use our forum and blog pages to voice any thoughts and share info that you may have about the COVID-19 situation and how it is affecting your local community and/or our community as a whole. We just ask, as always, that you remain civil with each other, respect opinions and views different from your own, and adhere to our Terms of Service in how you respond to each other.
Also if you are a party host or have any information on steps that are being taken at parties that are not yet listed on this page, please contact us and let us know so that we can share it with others in this blog entry. We will be updating this entry with further information as we receive it.
We wish you all careful and compassionate thoughts, constructive dialogue, informed choices, and...oh yeah...wash your damn hands!
- The WGP Admin Team
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