e didn’t start there, his “first” career was as a television producer for MTV and Nickelodeon, filled with live music events and award shows that many would recognize, all dappled with illustrious performers. I asked
him to give a little rundown on the events, “my re- sume reads like a bubble-gum pop checklist: Britney Spears, N’SYNC, Whitney Houston, Backstreet Boys. I did a lot of live music and concert event television stuff. Awards and concert shows were about 60 per- cent of my career, I worked with a ton of people, it was a good time. I did a bunch of TV and film stuff as well, but that was most of it.” Like any great entrepreneur he looked beyond
what he was doing, beginning with the L.A. club scene, “My first events were in 2000 when I was still working at MTV and Nickelodeon in New York. My boyfriend at the time and I were also working together on an animated film, doing the festival circuit and had put together a great promotional event at a gay venue called Felt in L.A. After that, the owners [of Felt] asked me if I would consider produc- ing a regular event and at the time I said, ‘no, I have a career already!’” Whitman didn’t move on right away, he was com-
mitted to his television production career, but Felt’s owners were pretty relentless; “They pursued me for about six months and I finally thought, ‘I’ll just do it for fun.’ That event was called Smack and it was pretty successful. Pretty soon after that Here Lounge opened and they had me produce there. After about six months of doing events and continuing in my regular career, I realized that I had to make a choice; pursue television full time or go off on my own. I was ready to work for myself, I had been at MTV network for a long time and knew that if I stayed there too much longer it was going to be something that I would never leave. So I left, opened an office, hired some staff and the rest is what I call ‘gay nightlife history!’” Curious to hear about his career highlights during
the myriad of parties, I figured he must have had great stories because he’s been at it for quite a while. “God, there are so many. I had really interesting times working with Whitney Houston, back when she still had it together. I spent an entire day with her and her ‘Kevin Kostner Bodyguard character’ in real life, her actual bodyguard. We were searching out sniper points at Universal’s backlot, places where someone could potentially kill her—it was totally crazy. Trying to figure out where someone might hide who was trying to knock off Whitney Houston (laughs).” I pressed him for any moments when he realized
that he had done something remarkable in his career or if he had any defining moments with one famous
34 RAGE monthly | JANUARY 2014 RAGE monthly | JANUARY 2014
person in particular. This was the story… and a great one at that, “Lady Gaga was one of the highlights as far as my LGBT production stuff. I had her perform three times, the first time was at Here Lounge, it was very small on a tiny four-by-eight stage, she had just three dancers—it was great. I had booked her because I thought she was so amazing, her single “Just Dance” was out and really interesting. I booked her six months later for Wonderland on the backlot of Paramount studios and everyone there was like ‘what’s the deal with this Lady Gaga?’ Because I usu- ally book really well=known, big-name performers for that event. I told them, ‘just wait’ and boom she ex- ploded. Then I booked her for a third time for Cherry Pop at Ultra Suede after she had broken and it was completely crazy, you couldn’t move in that place! All the naysayers were like, ‘Okay, we get it!’” You could tell he loved working with Lady Gaga—a
lot, “She pulled me aside after the Cherry Pop perfor- mance and said to me, ‘Hey, I just wanted to tell you thank you. You helped to break me in L.A. because you supported me and believed in what I was doing!’ She is just a genuinely sweet, talented, fun woman to work with. There are so many other great stories, I have worked with so many amazing people in New York, L.A. and all over the country—I could fill a book someday!” That was a bit of Whitman’s backstory, now on to
the highlight of this article: Elevation Ski Events—all three of them, Mammoth, Utah and the latest, Lake Tahoe. I asked how he began and why he chose Mam- moth Mountain as the starting point. “Mammoth was
my home mountain when I was skiing and racing for UCLA; I would go up there to spend the weekends regularly. Even after I graduated I spent a great deal of time up there. A friend and I talked about doing a ski weekend, he was from Whistler, BC, home of the largest LGBT ski week in America and we thought what about Mammoth? Starting out it was very much a test case, we sent out emails to see what would happen. With very little effort, 300-400 guys came out and I realized that it could actually become some- thing very real. We built it up the next year, doubling in size for each of the next few years, going from a few events over the course of two days, to what it is now, nine big events over the course of five days!” After a time, Whitman realized that there was more
potential, there were many more resorts out there, so he started looking for another location to host. That was four years ago and Park City, Utah was the place he chose. We talked about why he wanted to grow the series, “My goal is to build these events into big, national/international LGBT events. Mammoth had grown to be so large; it had become the third largest LGBT ski week in North America, just after Whistler’s in Canada. So I decided that it would be a great thing to do it again somewhere else.” About why he chose Park City, Utah; “There are so
many great resorts that would be perfect for a great ski week, so when I did my due diligence searching for another spot in the U.S., Park City was an obvious choice. It’s such a good resort, is so easy to get to and has so many great options and a ton of large venues. Park City is everything that a ski resort should be; it’s
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