Ten years on the web: 1995-2005
A
website for Tacky
Tourist Clubs first appeared in June, 1995 -- just in time for the Lesbian/Gay
Pride Parade/March, and just in time for its
relatively complicated address to appear on the Cruise promotional flyer passed
out along the March route. The site was, at first, hosted on a volunteer's
personal website, but moved to the current domain a year later.
The look of the site has morphed over the years, but its purpose and primary features haven't changed all that much. The site still provides information about upcoming parties and about the organization. And the party pictures are still (and by far) the most popular feature of the site.
The story below was printed in January, 1996 in the second (and final) issue of a "highly irregular newsletter of Tacky Tourist Clubs" which was called The Concierge.
Tacky Tourist Clubs open a rest stop on the Information Highway
 "The Concierge TTCA 1996 newsletter. Click to enlarge.")
Since June, Bruce -- the familiar Tacky Tourist smirkey face -- has greeted surfers in the Internet's World Wide Web at a special way-station on the information superhighway. The TTCA home page provides information about upcoming parties and about the organization, a cafe -- $3 Bill's -- where travelers can stop and chat, and picture of past events. Since it's a tourist trap, there's even a petting zoo off in the corner.
It's those pictures that have proven most popular. Before the Bump at Halloween, the incredible publicity shots taken by Ernest Vigil and Lee Ratcliffe were posted in the TTCA photo lounge. A thousand visitors had dropped by in just one day to look at them. The visitor count is a bit lower on most days, but still averages between 300 and 500 visits per day for showing of pictures of the Queen City Cruise and of the TTCA entry in the Freedom Day Parade.
If you have a Web browser, then you too can enjoy the refreshing stop at the TTCA way-station. Just search for "Tacky Tourist Clubs" in any of the good search engines, or point your browser to [original site address for what is now www.ttca.org].
After several years when our web visitors were directed to one of several brick-and-mortar ticket outlets or to a phone-line ordering feature, a major addition came to the site when when online ticket ordering was added. Online orders are now the primary way to handle ticket purchases. This saves the organization money and time.
Except for a black and white screen shot of the initial page design that was included in a 1996 newsletter article (see sidebar), the look and contents of that initial site are lost to computer upgrades and hard-drive failures. But several later iterations are available in the collections of www.archive.org. The earliest copy they keep, from December, 1986 is only slightly changed from the original.
The pink pages remained until late in 1998 when the pink was replaced by white backgrounds in a framed version of the site. The web archive has maintained several of the iterations of that version but has thrown out most of the pictures. This one, however, shows the general layout. (And also shows that it was remarkably similar to the current unframed version still used today [in May, 2005].)
The Prom's last dance was announced on these pages in 1997. The final Tacky Tourist Clubs production of Things That Go Bump in the night was announced here before its new presenters, Gay City, took command.
On the site itself, the cafe went away after it became just a bit too difficult to keep the spam-riffraff out of the place. A few other things like the Rumor machine were added and have stayed. We hope to add some additional features, but that will depend on getting a new host for the site.
As always, we welcome comments and suggestions from visitors to our site. From any page, please click the "(e)Mail" link in the menu on the left for our contact information.
