Happy Feasting

As we slip towards summer and the hills start turning brown, it’s nice to know we are on the verge of another Feast Festival to inject a splash of colour into our fair city.

As many of you will have seen, Events SA have included Feast as part of their November publicity campaign, with none other than our own beloved Dr Gertrude Glossip adorning the sides of our Adelaide trams. I’m sure the venerable lady has long secretly hankered to be transformed into a moving billboard!

Seriously, I think it’s high time the festival received this kind of recognition from the broader community. Both Events SA and the Adelaide City Council under Lord Mayor Stephen Yarwood have significantly increased their support for our queer cultural festival, to their great credit. After all Feast has grown from strength to strength in recent years and it’s not going away.

Feast draws in many visitors from around the state, interstate and even overseas, so it’s entirely fitting that this year we at Evolution Publishing are issuing once again our Feast Visitors Guide for the benefit of Adelaideans and non-Adelaideans alike. You’ll find it’s a handy, quick guide to some of the bigger attractions of the festival and a great complement to the official Feast Festival program guide. You’ll find them all over the ANZ Feast Hub and at your favourite venues, so make sure you grab a copy.

In this issue practically every story has a Feast connection, including Alex Dunkin’s interview with renowned chef Jean-Claude de Toulouse. He reveals that it has long been his desire to become more involved with the LGBTI community, and he’s making a start by taking part in this year’s Feast Festival. He also reveals what he going to be doing for Pride March. Delicious.

The AIDS Council have also confirmed they will be running their annual Adelaide Gay Community Periodic Survey during Feast. This is an important task which helps ACSA to gauge where they need to focus their energies in the coming months in terms of gay men’s health. You’ll see their volunteers combing the Hub and of course Picnic in the Park, but they will also be targeting The Mars Bar, Pulteney 431 Sauna and Vonni’s Big Arvo at the Colonel Light Hotel. Do yourselves and everyone else a favour and take a few minutes to answer some simple questions.

Ron Hughes is the editor of blaze.