the-dinah

Kick up Your Skirts

The Dinah — the world’s largest girl party — takes over downtown Palm Springs.

Emily Chavous Foster LGBTQ+

the-dinah
Rapsody is part of the hot emerging female entertainers to take the stage at The Dinah..
PHOTOGRAPHS COURTESY CLUBSKIRTS

Palm Springs is about to be brimming with 20,000 women and some of the hottest emerging female entertainers. The 28th iteration of The Dinah — the world’s largest girl party — takes over town at the end of this month, March 28 – April 1.

“It’s a five-day break from these crazy lives we’re collectively living right now,” says Mariah Hanson, founder and producer of The Dinah. “I want to invite women to focus on what’s positive, to create a better now and a better future. We create the environment that we live in collectively, and it’s really important for people to recognize that we need to stand for our inclusiveness, for positivity.”

Presented by ClubSkirts, the lesbian gathering turned music festival launched in 1991 at the Palm Springs Art Museum. It was a festive meet-and-mingle weekend for gay women surrounding the Colgate Dinah Shore golf tournament (now the ANA Inspiration).

Though the women’s major is of no relation to the festival, it had become a popular outing for lesbians, Hanson says, and that provided reason to get together and “live out loud.” Her inaugural event sold out, packing the arts venue with 1,000 guests. As The Dinah plunges toward its three-decade mark, the parties have only gotten splashier.

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Ariana DiLorenzo of Ariana and the Rose

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Jessie Reyez

Hanson has a knack for finding young talent on the cusp of making it big. The Dinah staged Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, and Iggy Azalea early in their careers. This month, Grammy nominee Rapsody, Chicano hip-hop artist Snow Tha Product, electronic maven Madame Ghandi, R&B/soul singer Jessie Reyez, and synth-pop band Ariana and the Rose headline; comedians Dana Goldberg and Suzanne Westenhoefer also perform.

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Snow Tha Product

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Madame Ghandi

“The Dinah has always represented women’s disabilities, empowerment, and 
female artists that are inspiring,” Hanson says. “That message is evolving in a way that is really connected with how every woman is feeling right now; it’s resonating with a movement. And of course we’re getting as colorful as we can with it.”

Looking for more? Read our conversation with headliner Snow Tha Product.

thedinah.com