Interchange – Taking Bozeman Pride To The Next Level – An Event Celebrating Strides In Human Rights [Video]

The Montana Pride Celebration has been in Bozeman for the past 2 years. It had significant growth over those 2 years, garnering well over 2,000 in 2011 and more than doubling in size in 2012 with upwards of 5,100 attending between downtown and Montana State University events. Following the Pride Celebration model the festival moves every 2 years. This coming summer the event will continue spreading the message of education and acceptance of the LGBT community in Butte this June. To those who helped in the planning of the 2011 and 2012 Pride Festivals there was too much growth to watch it leave Bozeman. So something new was created. INTERCHANGE.

Interchange will be a festival similar to Pride, in it's goals of spreading the word of the LGBT, but different in the long term. Specifically, Interchange will stay in Bozeman.

Excerpt from an Interchange press release:

"The planning committee for the 2011 and 2012 Montana Pride Celebrations pitched the idea of centralizing Montana’s annual Pride event in Bozeman each year, instead of rotating to a new host community every two years. After a great deal of discussion with the Montana Pride Network Board, they felt the concept didn’t hold up to their own mission statement, but encouraged us to move ahead with our own plans to develop an annual event for 2013 and beyond. In 2013, Bozeman will be hosting it’s first year of INTERCHANGE: An annual festival celebrating strides in human rights, equality, and the continuing dialogue on a number of important issues. INTERCHANGE will annually evolve.  As we do, integrating awareness and giving a voice to a number of innovative topics, whether scientific, creative, national performing artists or otherwise so long as they support the evolution and improvement of the causes essential to the spirit of the event."

This isn't a rag tag group of people that have a hair brained idea either.

The INTERCHANGE board includes several pivotal individuals that assisted in planning the 2011 and 2012 Pride celebrations. This group, under the direction of Tate Chamberlin from Chamberlin Productions will be the beginning core of INTERCHANGE. Our fiscal sponsor will be TAP-365, a nonprofit from Billings, Montana. Our main objective is to sustain the festival for several years as a platform for equality, human rights and changes in human dynamics as we head into the future.

There was a product release meeting on November 27th that gave some more details about the event and introduced those who will be pivotal in the execution of INTERCHANGE.  The group explained their plans to make INTERCHANGE more than just a festival of arts and entertainment.  Creating sectors under the name for education in schools and otherwise, funding to help political advancement toward equality, and a plethora of other endeavors where all said to be possibilities.

If you have an idea for INTERCHANGE or you are interested in helping in any capacity please contact Tate Chamberlin at  Tate@chamberlinproductions.com.