Not your parents’ museum, nor chamber of commerce

Post pandemic, the chamber rebranded its fiestas as Hermos Fiesta Locale, added performances by local musicians, such as Sentry Dogs (above), and put more emphasis on local shopping. Photo by Kevin Cody

by Kevin Cody

Two of Hermosa’s stodgiest institutions embraced the torrent of fresh thinking unleashed by lifting of COVID restrictions at the start of 2022.

The Hermosa Beach Historical Society set aside its preoccupation with the town’s early history for shows about its contemporary history.

The Chamber of Commerce lifted the lid on “third rail” issues, previously thought too controversial even to discuss.

The museum’s first exhibit of the year featured beach volleyball photos by Robi Hutas, who typically shot from the back of the court. As a result, he photographed a lot of players’ butts, mostly female. Some of those photos, the Historical Society determined, didn’t conform to “contemporary community standards.”

But they did have artistic merit. So, in keeping with the practice of other museums confronted with “community standards” conflicts, such as the brothel art at Pompei, the museum put Hutas’ prurient photographs behind a red curtain.

In March, the museum hosted an exhibit of Kevin Salk’s “Punk Rock Photography.” Black Flag singer Dez Cadena, who appeared in many of the photos, recalled inviting Orange County punks, but snubbing local fans to Black Flag’s final performance at the Old Baptist Church. He didn’t want to risk his local fans getting beat up by Hermosa police, he explained.

In June, the Museum screened the premier of “Gender Outlaw,” a documentary by local filmmaker Peter Williams about local, transgender body surfer Tyler Wilde.

Under the leadership of board president Greg McNally and director Jamie Erickson, the museum made progress in 2022 toward accreditation by the American Alliance of Museums. 

Post pandemic, the chamber rebranded its fiestas as Hermosa Fiesta Locale, added performances by local musicians, such as Sentry Dogs (above), and put more emphasis on local shopping. Photo by Kevin Cody

Chamber hits refresh button

The Hermosa Chamber of Commerce, historically an even stodgier organization than the Historical Society, was even brasher in its post COVID activities, under the leadership of young, blue-haired CEO Jessica Accamando, who was appointed a year before COVID restrictions were lifted. 

In January, the chamber hosted its annual awards dinner, not in a hotel banquet room, but at the Lighthouse Jazz Cafe. The traditional awards were presented, such as for Best New Business, and Chamber Member of theYear. But there were also new awards, such the D.I.G (Diverse, Inclusive, Gender-Equal) Award. And in the sharpest break with tradition, the chamber’s highest honors no longer went to the Man and Woman of the Year, but to the gender neutral Person of the Year. This year’s recipient was track coach, and museum board member Annie Seawright-Newton.

In keeping with rethinking long-held traditions, the chamber added beach concerts to its Memorial and Labor Day Weekend Fiestas, and abandoned national beer sponsors in its formerly  free beer garden in favor of local craft beers, and charging admission.

A still bigger tweaking of tradition may come next year when the chamber decides whether to replace the Labor Day Weekend Fiesta with a smaller, locally focused fall event. Accamando raised the prospect in November during a members’ Zoom meeting. She said the Labor Day Weekend Fiesta has netted 50 percent less income than the Memorial Day Weekend Fiesta each year since 2016. Canceling the Labor Weekend Fiesta is advocated by some downtown chamber businesses who discovered during COVID that their holiday weekend business was better without the end of summer fiesta. But proponents of the Memorial Day Weekend Fiesta note that a fall event would compete with a crowded calendar, which includes the Skechers Friendship Walk, the Manhattan Pumpkin Races, the American Martyrs Parish Fair, the Manhattan Hometown Faire, and Halloween.

Another factor is the chamber’s financial dependence on the two fiestas. In 2019, net revenue from the Labor Day Weekend Fiesta was, as Accamando noted, 50 percent less than the Memorial Day Weekend Fiesta’s. But it still produced a profit for the chamber of over $100,000, according to the non-profit reporting agency Guidestar. ER

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