GO PR O F I L E
GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINAH? Behind the Scenes of the World’s Largest Lesbian Event WRITTEN BY: NICK CIMARUSTI
Ò Twenty-six years ago, Mariah Hanson started Dinah Shore Weekend because she
believed her community deserved the best of the best. Now, as the world’s largest lesbian event, Hanson’s music festival is annually hosted by The Hilton and regarded as the five-day celebration of the pool party season. This year, Dinah is being headlined by Elle King and DJ Samantha Ronson, among other acts.
MARIAH HANSON FOUNDER OF DINAH SHORE WEEKEND
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LOCALE MAGAZINE Greater Palm Springs 2016
Q: What gave you the idea to throw the first Dinah Shore Weekend in 1991? Mariah Hanson: I threw pretty amazing parties in college and it was a natural segue to start throwing some parties around the Dinah Shore Golf Tournament, which was well attended by lesbians. My first party was at the Palm Springs Art Museum. We took over the entire museum. Girls could drink a martini and lean on a Rodin. We approached the entire weekend with a lesbian-first, we’re-worth-
it attitude. Our message was lesbian pride. Q: So what would you say the overall atmosphere is for the weekend? MH: It’s Woodstock meets lesbian spring break. It has this feel good, lovefest element to it because it’s very important to us that we are creating a tolerant, all-inclusive environment. Everybody just drops their preconceptions, and they become what we call Dinah-fied. At the Dinah all those limitations melt away into this really beautiful festival of unity and celebration and most
importantly living out loud. I think often times LGBT people suffer from low self-esteem so for five days we work as hard as we can to help build that self esteem and tell every person that walks through those doors that they are worth it. Q: For this year’s Dinah, what are you most excited about? MH: We just announced Elle King. We have a really cool lineup. It’s very DJ-driven this year. Q: Do you have a favorite year for Dinah? MH: Probably 2009, it was really amazing because
we booked Lady Gaga and Katy Perry. It was an honor to put them on stage. It’s crazy because we’re putting people on our stage who get so famous we couldn’t afford them the next year. Q: What’s the most difficult aspect of planning Dinah? MH: The entire event is putting out fires behind the scenes. We don’t call ourselves producers— we call ourselves fire battalions. There’s a stress that goes handin-hand with production that is both exhilarating and challenging. But the