The Dinah Founder Mariah Hanson Talks About the 32nd Year of the Event

The Club Skirts Dinah Shore Weekend—more popularly known as simply The Dinah—is an annual party and music festival for queer women and non-binary people (although all are welcome) which is held in Palm Springs. Mariah Hanson (she/her) began The Dinah in 1991, and this year marks the 32nd Dinah (there was, obviously, a year off for the pandemic).

Hanson was a natural party-thrower all of her life, and she’s turned that into a career with The Dinah. Past year’s performers have included the likes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, Chaka Khan, Salt’n Pepa, Kesha, and the Indigo Girls, just to name a few. This year’s Dinah, which takes place September 20-24 at the Margaritaville Hotel, will be headlined by openly queer rapper Princess Nokia.

OFM sat down with Hanson to talk about the Dinah, it’s history, and what will make this year special.

What inspired you to start the Dinah?

I just was a natural party thrower. I I’ve been throwing parties really since I was probably about 5. But I threw parties in college that were very successful, and it just segued into a career, which it has been awesome because I get to do what I love to do. And as I have matured and expanded my my whole experience in life, I really love what I’m creating, what my team is creating, and what our customers are helping us create. The Dinah has become a really beautiful event. I’m very proud of it.

It’s named after Dinah Shore, but where did that name come from? Why Dinah Shore?

Yeah, most of the people that attend the Dinah now have no idea who she is. I always joke it’s a beach in South Florida. She lent her name to a golf tournament that was very prominent in Palm Springs called the Nabisco Dinah Shore. And it’s my impressio—although (there are) no facts to back this up—that they were really uncomfortable with the queer lesbian association because, as we put a year behind us, the event got greater and greater to the point where it was a case of the tail wagging the dog.

In some respects, I think the Dinah queer event was much more prominent and well-known than the Dinah Shore golf tournament. So they changed the name; they took her name off of it, which was, I think, kind of sad. She was an actress who really did a lot for women’s sports and for creating parity in the level of winnings because the men were making so much more money on the circuit than the women were. And once she lent her name to the Dinah Shore tournament, that started to change. And I think she gets a lot of kudos for that, that I feel like is very unrecognized. So I’m super proud to carry her name in the event. I think she’s a hero for women’s sports.

What do you have planned for this year that’s going to make it stand out from the other years?

You know, it’s such an amalgamation of what we present and then the vibe of our customers and how we help create that vibe. So even though we stay with a very similar platform—I’m one of those people that firmly believes it’s not broken, don’t fix it—There’s something that’s alchemy; there’s something that happens during the event, when we put all the ingredients together that makes every year very unique. But specifically, we reinstated the the celebrity dodge ball contests, which is hilarious. We were at a hotel where we didn’t have room to do it, and so we discontinued it for about six or seven or eight years, but it’s really funny getting the celebrities and sometimes even our artists will will play in it. We had Cece Peniston play celebrity dodgeball one year. So having our customers slamming our celebrities with dodge balls and our celebrities slamming back is quite fun to watch. But I think our emerging artist program is also not to miss you, because you don’t know what’s going to happen or who’s going to make it.

Has there ever been a performer whom you’ve really wanted to get for the Dinah and haven’t been able to?

Several! Hayley Kiyoko I asked every year, and she wants to play it; it just hasn’t aligned yet. So hopefully that’ll happen. P!nk said yes for four days when she was on tour with Justin Timberlake years ago. We’re going back probably 15 years, and she said yes. And then four days later they said no; our schedule doesn’t permit (that). And I was just such a mess because she would have been so incredible. But I would love for her to play it. And then I’m a Swifty. I admit it proudly. I do I think she’s so talented.

Do you have a favorite memory from a past Dinah?

Yeah, I do. My favorite memory is when my mom attended. She’s passed away. But she was this really amazing woman and an activist in her own right throughout my entire childhood. And she remained an activist, really, until the day she died. She was pretty incredible. But I booked a Chaka Khan, and it was more a booking for me because Rufus featuring Chaka Khan, that was just my music when I was a kid. And so to book that legendary artist was so phenomenal for me, and my mother loved her too. And there’s this great photo of me running because I was late and dragging my poor mother who was about 89 at the time to go do a photo op with my management team and Chaka Khan; it was really sweet. That’s probably one of my favorite memories.

But I have so many great moments where you’re just looking out and you’re seeing the sea of women who just have delight on their faces, or women and allies and nonbinary (people), all of our guests that come together to create such a beautiful tapestry of joy. So we try to help create for people a sense of joy for five days, that we can live in this world that that doesn’t really have a whole lot isms, because we ask people in our own way to leave them at the door and come in and enjoy the Dinah in a way that really celebrates our best and brightest of who each of us is.

Is there anything you’ve learned over all the years of doing this that made you change your approach to organizing the event?

Yeah, of course. I’ve been doing this for 32 years, so I grew up with this event. And that meant in the early years that I had a lot of personal work to do to develop as a mature and kind and broad-thinking individual, because I have this platform that’s so important. And it really demanded that I step up to present this event in the best way possible, so that people do feel seen, felt, and heard. So that was a journey. For me, it (was) a lot of power at the beginning of my career when I was 28 years old, or 29, or 30, or even throughout my 30s.

You have your choice point; how do you treat power? And don’t think you treat it like something that makes you special. Treat it like it’s an honor to be able to have influence or to have platforms. And you have an obligation, just a human obligation, to present it in a way that helps to change lives and to make the world a better place. And I invite everyone who works in my management circle to think that same way, and they really don’t get hired unless they can understand that what we’re doing is very deep, and that it’s life changing, and that we have to take that really seriously. So yeah, I went on a spiritual journey for six years with a kind of a “guru,” and (that) really changed my perspective. I’d always had it because I have an activist mother, but it helped me to hone it in a way that I think has made the Dinah much more powerful than it’s ever been.

Do you have any grand plans for the future the Dinah that you can tell us about?

I just think it’s an amazing event that will continue year after year doesn’t seem to let up. We’re really proud of the fact that it’s a 32-year-old music festival. That’s pretty unheard of. And the joy that it brings every year just sustains itself. So it’s a real feel good for the people that actually helped produce the event, to be able to create the kind of feel good that we do, and to know that we’re helping to make the world a better place because people are coming from all over the world. And so they have to get to the Dinah and and be in this large group of queer, nonbinary (people), and women, and their allies, and trans men and women, and figure out a way to get along for five days and expand the way that we think about each other. And it happens. It’s really powerful. So I look at the Dinah on two levels; it’s a really fun bacchanalian and crazy event, and it’s also a game changer. It’s because we’re behind the scenes really hoping that what we’re creating makes a big difference.

You say 32 years, but I assume the pandemic must have gotten in the way in the past few years.

Well, if the pandemic has gotten in the way, I would have said 33 years.

Oh, OK.

The pandemic definitely got in the way, but just for a year. It’s why I changed the dates from April to September. But interestingly enough, if I didn’t change it to September—It is a little bit hotter in September, but it can be a little cold in April, so we’ve had Dinahs where it rained on Friday, several times—but Palm Springs, like a lot of destination cities just blew up because people couldn’t travel and then they could and so the room rates in April are stratospheric. I wouldn’t be able to pull it off anymore.

And so I’m fighting for decent room rates in September, because their whole summer is packed. It’s crazy. But the city recognizes the Dinah as a legacy event. I think there’s 10 events that they consider legacy. And they realize the importance that the event has for the city, in terms of diversity. And I love that. I love how progressive the city is and how progressive the City Council is, and that they recognize that they can’t just go after the dollar; they have to go after the world that we want to create. And that world includes everybody. And I think that the Palm Springs city government, that’s part of their messaging. So it’s a great place to produce events because I think they get it.

Tickets are available now from See Tickets. Follow The Dinah on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter if you want to keep up with the latest updates from this year’s hottest queer party!