Peace March Organizers Cancel Send-off Concert

Two weeks before their scheduled March 1 departure from Los Angeles on the Great Peace March to Washington to advocate global nuclear disarmament, the organizers of PROPeace have dropped plans for a daylong “concert and departure ceremonies” at the Coliseum.

Instead there will be a free concert and ceremony at City Hall. At dusk, the marchers, projected at about 1,500 to 2,000 will leave City Hall and walk by surface streets to Cal State L.A. to camp for the first of 255 nights on the road.

Earlier that day, a VIP and celebrity brunch at the Museum of Science of Industry will be held as planned, PROPeace communications director Torie Osborn said. Tickets at $250 and $150 are said to be selling well.

The change was necessary because not enough “name” entertainers agreed to appear for free, according to David Mixner, PROPeace founder and director. A capacity crowd at the 100,000-seat stadium would have been needed to offset projected production costs of $850,000 and produce a profit, he said.

Reached at White Oaks Recreation Park in the San Fernando Valley, where staff and marchers are camping and undergoing training, Mixner attributed the failure to obtain major artists to a probable “benefited-out” syndrome in the wake of Live Aid, Farm Aid and other nationwide celebrity fund-raising efforts.

“It’s not a brush against the whole entertainment industry,” Mixner said. He mentioned singers Melissa Manchester and Holly Near and rock groups Mr. Mister and Gravity, all confirmed for the send-off concert, and Barbra Streisand, who has donated profits from a recent song and is honorary co-chair of the brunch and send-off with Paul Newman and Elizabeth Taylor.