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VSK Entertainment Presents Antypas Live in DC with Prodromos & Evgenia at Karma DC Live Music Venue on Friday, 4/5/24!  Reserved table, couch, and general admission tickets on sale exclusively at DCGreeks.com!
International Powerhouse Tenor & Classical-Crossover Artist MARIO FRANGOULIS performs live in Washington, DC on Friday, April 12, 2024 at Warner Theatre, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the American Hellenic Institute. Click here for details!
International Powerhouse Tenor & Classical-Crossover Artist MARIO FRANGOULIS performs live in Washington, DC on Friday, April 12, 2024 at Warner Theatre, celebrating the 50th Anniversary of the American Hellenic Institute. Click here for details!
St. George Greek Orthodox Church of Bethesda, MD invites you to our Greek Festival 2024 on Saturday, May 18 and Sunday, May 19, 2024 at St. George Greek Orthodox Church in Bethesda, MD. Click here for details!
What's New @ DCGreeks.com
03/12Tickets are now on sale for POLIS - The Queen of Cities: A Musical Tribute to the Fall of Constantinople on May 10, 2024 at Saint Sophia Greek Orthodox Cathedral in Washington, DC!
03/11Tickets are now on sale for The Path of the Sacred Passion: A Byzantine Music Concert on April 20, 2024 at St. Katherine's in Falls Church, VA!
03/04Tickets are now on sale for Midwest Greeks 2024 from May 17-19, 2024 in Cleveland, OH!
02/24New Event: Chios Societies of the Americas & Canada 67th Annual Convention from October 11-13, 2024, in Washington, DC!
02/17New Event: St. George's Greek Festival 2024 on 5/18/24 & 5/19/24 in Bethesda, MD
02/07New Event: AHI 50th Anniversary Gala Weekend, April 12-13, 2024, in Washington, DC, featuring Mario Frangoulis in Concert and Hellenic Heritage Achievement and National Public Service Awards Dinner
01/15Tickets are now on sale for DCGreeks.com Greek Heritage Night with the Washington Wizards 2024 on 4/2/24 as they take on Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo and the Bucks!
01/14Tickets are now on sale for Antypas Live in DC with Prodromos & Evgenia on 4/5/24 at Karma DC Live Music Venue in Washington, DC!
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DCGreeks.com invites you to Capital One Arena on Tuesday, April 2, 2024 at 7:00 PM as the Washington Wizards take Giannis and Thanasis Antetokounmpo and the Milwaukee Bucks at our Annual DCGreeks.com Greek Heritage Night with the Washington Wizards featuring a HALFTIME Greek dance performance by Byzantio! Click here for details!

Clearwater YAL Memorial Day Weekend 2007 Preview

April 24, 2007

This year more than ever it seems like Clearwater has snuck up on us. Inexplicably there seems to be less buzz about it this year, in perhaps a year where there are more intriguing changes than in recent memory. While it’s still at St. Pete’s Beach this year, the organizers seem determined to at least make the most of it, as everything (yes everything) will take place at the resort this year.

The hotel this year is the Tradewinds Sandpiper Hotel and Suites, which is next door to last year’s hotel owned by the same company. The good news is that the entire resort is exclusively reserved for the Convention. The hotel is already sold out because of its size, a mere 159 rooms, 2/3rds of which are suites, ensuring that regardless of the local turnout, there should be conservatively 600 people at the hotel alone. The bad news for the hotel is that the entire resort is exclusively reserved for the Convention, as there won’t be any of the self-policing that normally takes place when others outside the convention complain about the noise, three-story beer funnels, etc. As everything is taking place at the hotel, there will be no need for timing busses or even for cab fare, unless you want to try to go to Tarpon Springs. (More on that below.)

Noticeably absent from this year’s line up is the traditional official/unofficial concert at the church on Saturday Night. Maybe it was the low turn out at last year’s concert, or that the only tour worth mentioning – the Dionysiou Brothers – will be in some high profile places in the weeks before and after Clearwater, or maybe it was that they finally listened to us complain for the last three years that unless the concert is on the beach, it’s not worth paying an a la carte ticket price to see a show that you can see anywhere else. We suspect it was the latter because they are replacing the event with a Greek Island Party at the hotel that actually starts on the beach. (What a concept.)

Running down the other events during the weekend…

Thursday Night’s White Party has been clarified and rebranded as a White Linen Party. (Perhaps White Party was seen as somehow discriminatory… like a weekend attended by 99.4% Greeks isn’t.) The Guys @ DCGreeks.com appreciate the clarification about linen. Last year’s search for white outfits led to K&G Superstore, a primarily men’s discount warehouse store that typically carries clothing that The Guys @ DCGreeks.com or any other Greek male who takes himself the least bit seriously can’t pull off; yet a perfect store for finding novelty items like white pants or other white outfits. Upon walking into the store we were approached by a very helpful customer service representative poised to help us with our white party purchases.

- Hello, welcome to K&G, is there anything I can help you find today?
- Well, actually we’re looking for white outfits for a theme party we’re going to next week.
- Ooh, I love theme parties. Let me ask you, did this party come with an invitation?
- Uh, not exactly, I mean there was a flyer.
- Oh okay, so it’s not too formal, because I was going to show you this white pinstripe tux.
- Yeah, that might be a bit much.

Friday night’s Greek Night is some Red Carpet theme, which basically makes it an indistinguishable Greek Night. Saturday night’s event starts at the pool next to the beach and moves indoors after-hours for bouzoukia, which is a welcome addition to this year’s bill. We need to give credit to the organizers for booking a live band for Friday, Saturday, and Sunday night, particularly for the event on Sunday night, which wasn’t the same last year without a live band. Sunday night’s event will be interesting not having it at the church, seeing as this is the Clearwater church’s opportunity to show us all their philoxenia. (We’re curious if the hotel will allow food to be brought in from outside.) They are also advertising that night as a “Formal” which may be an overstatement, as semi-formal in the Florida humidity is hard enough to pull off. The organizers seem to want to make Monday night worthwhile with a luau.

As for practical tips for St. Pete’s Beach, if you’re thinking of taking a night off to go to Tarpon Springs, good luck, because the trip is basically twice as long from there are it is from Clearwater Beach. There is a Publix (that’s a grocery store for those of you not from the Southeast) for food and other provisions probably about 3/4 of a mile from the hotel (certainly within walking distance). The ability to charge food and alcohol to the room will make for cash-free partying but will leave many with sticker-shock when the final bill comes in. There’s plenty of fun and basic conveniences included with the mandatory resort fee, so you might as well use them. If you don’t have a room at the main hotel, this may be the year where it actually matters. (When the convention was at Clearwater Beach, we were firm believers that it didn’t matter if you stayed at the main hotel or not because everything was within walking distance and it didn’t seem like the fun was as hotel-centric.) Keep checking back on DCGreeks.com as the time approaches for any updates as we learn of them here, but otherwise, we’ll see you in Clearwater.

Photos from the 15th Annual Clearwater YAL Memorial Day Weekend

Date

Events

05/24/2006 Welcome Party at The Tradewinds
05/25/2006 Hanging Out on the Beach
Santorini Nights
05/26/2006 Hanging Out at the Pool
Grecian Glamour
05/27/2006 Perikis and Konstantinos Pantzis
Live in Concert
05/28/2006 Dance at Matheos Hall

 


 

Read past feature articles