FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact:
Martin Quinn, 347-421-3057
martin@folsomstreeteast.com
Heysha Nameri, 646-535-8528
heysha@folsomstreeteast.com
Folsom Street East Celebrates 20 Years of Kink
Annual Street Festival To Be Held on Sunday, June 18, 2017
New York, NY, May 3, 2017 — Folsom Street East, Inc. (FSE) will celebrate twenty years of gear and kink, fetish and in-your-face sexuality and benevolence at the 20th Anniversary Folsom Street East Street Festival, Sunday, June 18, 2017 from 11:00 AM – 6:00 PM on 27th Street between 10th and 11th Avenues, NYC.
Beneficiaries of this year’s event are:
Iris House, which provides comprehensive support, prevention and education services for women, families and underserved populations affected by HIV/AIDS and other health disparities in a safe family-centered environment;
New York City Anti-Violence Project empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, and HIV-affected communities and allies to end all forms of violence through organizing and education, and supports survivors through counseling and advocacy;
Queer Detainee Empowerment Project, which provides support to LGBTQI detainees and undocumented persons.
FSE has granted more than $250,000 to local community organizations since our first street festival in 1997.
Presenting Sponsor is Recon, the world’s largest dating website and app exclusively for gay, bi and curious men into fetish, leather and kink. Supporting Sponsor is the NYC Eagle, who will host the Festival’s beer garden.
“This year the board is excited to celebrate everything that Folsom Street East continues to be. Twenty years of giving back to organizations that support NYC’s LGBTQ and HIV-affected
communities while celebrating the diversity of who we are, who we love and how we choose to express ourselves,” said Robert Lopez, FSE Board Vice President.
“As a new board member at this landmark time in the organization’s history and as a queer woman of color, I am so excited for the direction of the next frontier of FSE. This event brings the different faces and shades of the fetish community from New York City and all over the country,” said Heysha Nameri, FSE Board member.
“The Folsom Street East street festival was the first pride event I ever attended back in the late 1990s,” says Matt Johnson, FSE Board President. “From the people I have met here, I have learned that I can be a weirdo without being an outcast, and that friends can become family. It’s an honor and a privilege to be part of the team who has been taking New Yorkers on their own kinky journeys for the past twenty years.”
This year’s street festival is being mounted with the assistance of over 100 volunteers. It will include more than 30 exhibitors and community groups, an art gallery exhibition hosted by Recon, and a stage show emceed by drag entertainer and community activist Witti Repartee and musician Will Sheridan.
Featured stage show acts include singer/songwriter Kyle Motsinger, lesbian rock phenomenon Sweet Tits, country artists The Paisley Fields, burlesque legend Fem Appeal, boylesque producer Matt Knife and many more.
Festival tickets will be available for purchase on Saturday, May 6th, 2017. For more information about this year’s festival and beneficiaries, visit http://folsomstreeteast.com.
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Folsom Street East, Inc. celebrates and inspires participation and pride in fetish, kink, and LGBTQ communities through the creation of safe spaces for public expression of our sexual identities. Folsom Street East, Inc. promotes and provides grants to other nonprofit organizations serving these communities.Folsom Street East, Inc. produces the largest outdoor LGBTQ and Allied Kink-Fetish Festival on the East Coast.
