Growing Better Together

This statement is part of our ongoing work to be transparent, to be by the community and for the community, and to showcase how we are continuing to grow as an organization that’s dedicated to creating spaces and places for queer artists and entertainers to learn, grow, and thrive. 

Over the last several weeks, our Executive Director has continued to work in close collaboration with the Black Drag Burlesque Alliance to review our organization’s current infrastructure, our history, and what our future looks like so that we can continue to embody our mission and best serve and collaborate with our community effectively and responsibly. We learned that there was feedback shared regarding this past year’s festival that we all agreed deserved addressing, as solutions have been put in place to make sure folks are cared for, seen, and feel safe as they participate or engage with our events.

Issues of Payment Delay to Vendors

As previously addressed, we resolved our situation regarding the Executive Director’s lack of payment to a photography vendor, who has since been paid in full. 

This year, our Executive Director has taken the necessary steps to secure funding for photography and videography before our festival opening dates. Deposits have been paid, agreements have been signed, and our donor is working closely with us and our vendors to ensure all individuals are paid on time. 

Distribution of Labor

Last year, our team simultaneously handled the growth of our organization as a nonprofit as well as the large undertaking that is FemmeFest. During that time, the distribution of labor as overseen by the Executive Director was uneven, and folks were responsible for more than what was sustainable. This meant things slipped through the cracks, fell to the wayside, or were simply forgotten. This year, we have taken steps to grow our organization by establishing department-specific committees with coordinators that help navigate each department, such as travel, lodging, raffles, education, volunteers, programming, vendors, communications, and talent. 

In short, we’ve given our volunteer roles the “Ken, your job is ‘beach’” treatment so that no one person is responsible for more than one department. We will continue to expand and fluctuate as the needs of our community and our annual event, FemmeFest, change. 

Treatment of Volunteers

During the course of planning of FemmeFest 2025, the Executive Director failed to lead in ways that were nurturing, communicative, or explicitly expressive of gratitude for all volunteers across the board. While there are explanations for lack of support, it is not an excuse for lack of care. As we’ve grown our new team of volunteers and board of directors, leadership has restructured to include more individuals on the board of directors, allowing directors to provide dedicated and explicit attention to their respective departments and created more opportunities for the Executive Director to delegate tasks in effective, communicative, and transparent ways. We have organized more consistent meetings and in-person meetups to allow for connections between team members to grow and thrive as well. Our Executive Director has also participated in professional development opportunities that focus on movement building, interpersonal relationships, and ways to nurture community growth as a whole. 

Lack of Dressing Room Availability

Last year, due to situations outside of our own control, the FemmeFest team was forced to create an atypical dressing room situation as a result of continued renovations at Rubber Gloves Rehearsal Studios that impacted our original plans. This violated the safety of performers and put them in a vulnerable position. While the circumstances were out of our control, we recognize that our response as a team and the upset feelings we carried around it impacted our incoming performers’ experience. 

This year, we have shifted our venue locations to feature different local businesses with stage spaces across the downtown Denton area, including our shift into the Patterson-Appleton Arts Center for our competition showcase. Extra measures are being taken to ensure that the dressing room at Anderson Distillery and Harvest House are safe and accommodating for our incoming entertainers, including additions of industrial cooling fans,  cooling stations, and a climate-controlled dressing room area provided at Harvest House. 

Travel and Lodging Complications

During our execution of travel and lodging support last year, there were several instances of confusion for our incoming headliners regarding their lodging locations, pickup support from the airport, and transport around town. As previously mentioned, we’ve taken extra steps this year by creating a dedicated travel coordinator and a dedicated lodging coordinator to focus on supporting our incoming headliners and cast members in these ways.

Closing

As we move into FemmeFest 2026, we’re grateful for the support, the space to grow, and for being held with kindness and care by our co-conspirators at the BDBA both for our Executive Director and the organization as a whole. We have been hard at work this past year to grow for the better, and it has meant a lot to us for our work to be witnessed, to have been asked thoughtful and reflective questions, and to know that we have someone in our court that will continue to hold us and our work accountable, as we intend to do the same for ourselves. 

For more information on where FemmeFest and the WTFemme Arts Foundation is headed, please visit our website for our monthly board minutes, as well as newsletters and annual reports.