A masquerade will replace the main stage at DAP Health’s 2027 Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards

“Come adorned. Leave transformed.”

That is the invitation DAP Health is extending for the 33rd annual Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards, which will become a masquerade on Saturday, Feb. 20, 2027, at the Palm Springs Convention Center.

Known as The Chase and presented by Desert Care Network, the gala will draw on design, the art form DAP Health says Steve Chase embodied most completely. The nonprofit announced the change. Tickets can be secured here.

Kevin Bass, longtime gala chair and DAP Health board member, offered a short guide to the mood.

“Think Venetian masquerade meets ‘Bridgerton’ meets Broadway’s ‘The Phantom of the Opera,'” he said. “We wanted to create something different and unique — something immersive. An experience.”

Guests are invited to wear creative formal attire that includes a mask, or their own take on masquerade.

“We’re asking people to come adorned,” Bass said. “But the goal is for them to leave transformed—to carry away with them the heart and soul of DAP Health presented in a way that’s entirely new and exciting.”

The biggest change is on stage, or the lack of one. In past years, the evening built toward a single headline entertainer. This time, acts will emerge from multiple locations and become part of the room, with contemporary music interpreted through a classical lens mixing with other styles before a dance party led by a live DJ.

DAP Health said the shift reflects a belief that people increasingly want experiences that take them beyond screens and daily routines. For Bass and the creative team, it raised a question: how can a gala staged for more than three decades keep its essence while becoming something attendees take part in together?

Much of the familiar format will stay. The evening will still include a cocktail reception, a silent auction, a dinner, community honorees, a live auction and a “raise-the-paddle” appeal.

Those fundraising elements support a growing list of needs. The Chase is named for Steve Chase, an internationally celebrated interior designer and philanthropist whose generosity helped DAP Health in its earliest years. Over the past three years, it has generated more than $2 million in net revenue, averaging nearly $700,000 a year.

DAP Health said that money helps fund its work on HIV prevention, where it says it operates the country’s largest PrEP intervention program among comparable organizations. The nonprofit plans to open an LGBTQ+ health clinic in Oceanside, in San Diego County’s North County, next spring.

It also helps the organization respond to changes in insurance coverage. More than 6,000 DAP Health patients have lost health insurance this year because of new federal legislation, the organization said, and it continues to care for them for $25 per visit or less.

The federal H.R. 1 bill destabilized California healthcare by mandating 80-hour monthly work, education, or community service requirements for adult Medi-Cal enrollees under the ACA expansion, a policy estimated to strip coverage from up to 1.1 million Californians by 2030.

DAP Health’s call center is contacting patients who may have lost coverage, answering questions and helping with eligibility reviews and re-enrollment. A new women’s health center is also scheduled to open in 2027 at DAP Health Sunrise in Palm Springs.

DAP Health said details on performers, honorees and other aspects of the evening will be announced in the coming months.

Founded in 1984, DAP Health has nearly 1,000 team members who provide medical, dental and behavioral health care and social services to almost 80,000 people at 23 fixed locations and six mobile units, from the Coachella Valley to the San Diego coast.

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