Modeled after the first World OutGames the Calgary OutGames functions primarily as a social venue with a week's worth of sports, culture and human rights events. The Calgary OutGames is a small shadow of the Montreal event, which brought more than 12,000 participants from around the world to compete in a variety of sporting events, attend cultural activities and take part in a human rights conference. Calgary OutGames anticipated about 600 participants from Canada and the United States and will had several keynote speakers and cultural activities for the gay and lesbian community.

Organizers say "the vision of the Calgary OutGames is to showcase Calgary as a city that embraces diversity, and accepts all people - regardless of their sexual orientation."  

The sporting side of the event which was billed as the largest gay, lesbian, bisexual and trans-gendered sports and culture event ever held in Alberta, is actually just an addition to the annual Western Cup, which has been held in Calgary every Easter weekend for the past 25 years.  

The Western Cup started in the early 1980's as a large-scale LGBT volleyball and curling tournament. Over the next few years it expanded to include several other sports such as a road race, swimming, bowling, badminton and this year added a hockey tournament. The Western Cup provides a chance to meet other gay competitors from across North America. Friendships form, and each year they are renewed and strengthened.  

The OutGames also boasted a cultural event that featured seven days of films, performances, concerts and comedy shows. Lilly Tomlin has added her comedy styling to the event with a highlighted performance of her one woman show. Tomlin has done extensive work with the GLBT community. She has won a Peabody for narrating and executive producing The Celluloid Closet a documentary about gays in film, and she starred in the 1993 HBO Special, And the Band Played On. OutFest is produced by the Fairytales Presentation Society and is being held as part of the experience surrounding OutGames Calgary.  

The sporting event also ran concurrently with OutRights, a human rights conference presented by AIDS Calgary Awareness Association. OutRights brought together local, national, and international business and community leaders, scholars, students, politicians, and philanthropists, to share knowledge and raise awareness of GLBT human rights issues.  

Judy Shepard, executive director of the Matthew Shepard Foundation, kicked off the celebration with a speech about diversity and acceptance, which included the importance of preventing hate crimes. Judy's son Matthew was the victim of a horrifying hate crime, which became a huge topic of national concern after the extensive media coverage in 1998. "The gay community is not on everyone's radar," she said in her speech at the opening ceremonies. "It should be, but it just isn't. "My mission now is to honor Matt's life by helping his friends and his community and raise awareness about the things they go through."  

Shepard also praised Canada for being on the right track to protecting gay rights. "You're ahead of us in a few places -hate speech and marriage," she said. "The U.S. has just fallen behind in who we're supposed to be - very disappointing."

Organizer Brad Bostock said that he hoped that this event would bring awareness to the gay community in Calgary. As one of fastest growing cities in Canada, Calgary has a vibrant gay community and discrimination "isn't that bad" thanks to a younger population more tolerant of alternative lifestyles, says Bostock. Bostock did, however, have difficulty finding sponsors for the event at first. Not many corporations want to get involved with such a risky venue especially after the losses generated by the larger scale gay events. But their persistence paid off and sponsorship did come in.

The 2006 World OutGames suffered a huge financial loss of over more than 5 million dollars and Gay Games events have repeatedly lost money. This event is of a much smaller scale and like PrideGames in London, incorporates more cultural events and conferences along with the athletic venues to appeal to a wider number of people. The need for athletic events within the gay community has become much more evident and hopefully more opportunities will continue to surface. No one wants to wait three or four years to compete in a gay accepting athletic event so get involved with a local event you.