Gay Games Coming to Cleveland!!!

[sharon kinsella]

I just found out. This is huge.

12,000 participants from all over the world. Over 100,000 viewers. Huge money for Cleveland. Absolutely huge.

The Synergy Foundation did the lead work, a bunch of local LGBT leaders put themselves together and organized. They've worked tirelessly for this.

Huge money for Lakewood too if we get ourselves in position for it.

YAY!!!

[Ahmie Yeung]

Heh... I posted about it in the other part of the forum since it wasn't specific to inside Lakewood's borders.

Maybe Lakewood can really shine up our reputation and available housing stock a bit and get some new residents out of this? My eldest really benefited from having the extra love from a lesbian couple that lived a few doors down from us when we first moved to Lakewood (they were friends of ours from church before we moved here and we actually chose to rent there to be close to them). They moved away for grad school when he was a toddler, we miss them. The open-minded diversity was part of the draw to Lakewood for us, as a multicultural family ourselves. I think it might be attractive to others too, if we shine up our image a bit more. We had no desire to live near a fake version like Crocker Park, that's for sure The genuine quirkiness of Lakewood is a big part of the appeal, as is the walkability and growing green consciousness.

[sharon kinsella]

And another part of it would be restaraunts - all those people have to eat. Which also means our other merchants.

The LGBT community has the highest disposable income factor of any other population.

Everyone has to eat. People are going to shop. Trust me on this one folks. Most of the people coming will be on vacation which also means shopping. We can get some of that if we're smart.

Get on the stick Lakewood.

[Stan Austin]

This is certainly good for the Greater Cleveland and Northeast Ohio area. Akron will host some events, too.

Just like any other noteworthy event, it's up to local communities and neighborhoods as to how they might want to use this too leverage our advantages.

[Michael Deneen]

Let the "cornhole" and "top gun volleyball" jokes begin!

Definitely a very good thing for the city. I'm surprised Cleveland was picked over two east coast cities....especially in light of Ohio's backward reputation.

For all its problems, Cleveland has been doing a pretty good job attracting sports events in recent years...we annually host college football, there have been many NCAA tournament events (hoops is back in 2011) and now the Gay Games.

I'd like to get the auto race back (not to mention an NFL team).