On October 10, Hanson will be receiving the Spirit of Stonewall Lifetime Achievement Award as part of the 2014 Palm Springs Pride celebration.
The Greater Palm Springs Pride Organization’s board of directors voted unanimously to honor her for 25 years changing lives with The Dinah. Hanson will also ride in the annual Pride Parade (November 9th).
In addition, The LGBT Community Center of The Desert is also honoring Mariah Hanson on November 7th with the first ever “ Legacy Award” for her invaluable contribution to the Coachella Valley LGBT community at the 5th Annual Center Stage Gala.
Hanson's visionary leadership as the founder of one of the Coachella Valley’s largest tourism boosters and undisputed biggest lesbian event of it kind in the world makes her the perfect choice as the first recipient of this inaugural award.
Last year, the City of Palm Springs and the Palm Springs Chamber of Commerce ATHENA Committee honored Mariah Hanson for her tremendous contributions to the Palm Springs community by awarding her the 2013 ATHENA leadership Award.
Hanson's incredible accomplishment with The Dinah has for the past 24 years not only continuously been promoting the Palm Springs destination but has also created a viable platform for the advancement of the LGBT community.
More than just an event promoter extraordinaire, Hanson is first and foremost an avant-garde business entrepreneur and exemplary community leader, who in a little over two decades has created an unsurpassed cultural and social phenomenon and built an impressive empire turning a small one-night event with 1,500 participants into a five-day bash with some 15,000-plus participants, booking entire hotels and securing major corporate sponsors.
Hanson is a woman who has perpetually been defining extreme reinvention by revolutionizing her industry, overturning tradition and raising the bar on female achievement. They said she was crazy and perhaps you do have to have a screw loose to dream this big but Hanson never takes NO for an answer!