David Bandy, a gay white man, was a party and event producer and an activist in the 1970s and 1980s in San Francisco. The collection contains posters, photographs, slides, ephemera, press material, correspondence and awards documenting events produced by Bandy’s production company Conceptual Entertainment and the entertainment scene: discos, rodeos, Gay Games and celebrities like Sylvester, Tina Turner and Divine.

David Bandy, a gay white man, was a party and event producer and activist in the 1970s and 1980s in San Francisco. Bandy, with Gary Roverana, formed Conceptual Entertainment, the production company responsible for many large scale events and parties for the gay community, including the Salutes to the Men of San Francisco, Let It Snow Christmas Party, Sylvester at the Opera House, The Mothership, The Lesbian/Gay Freedom Day Tea Dances, Dawn of the Decade New Year’s Spectacle, Illusions – A Halloween Spectacular, Sylvester in Concert, Stand by Your Man (National Gay Rodeo in Reno), opening and closing ceremonies at the First Gay Athletic Games in San Francisco, Le Cirque Galleria, Easter in the Country, Summer in the City and Resolutions. In 1980 his company won the Billboard Magazine Award for Top International Disco Concert Promoter. Bandy’s activism began with the Gay Day Tea Dance in June of 1979, a fundraiser paying the debts of the late San Francisco Supervisor Harvey Milk. Bandy continued to raise funds for Gay and Lesbian causes and AIDS throughout the years. In 1983, Bandy donated $1000 to AIDS/Kaposi’s Sarcoma Foundation and committed to donating a portion of all future proceeds from events he produced until a cure was found. By 1992, he was donating 50% of the proceeds from his events to benefit AIDS causes. Bandy’s life before producing events and after moving to San Diego in the 1990s are not represented in this collection.

2.5 linear feet, 2 cartons

Collection is open for research.