Tag Archives: pride

QPF: Plans for ‘bigger and better’ Queer/Pride Festival in 2023 on Capitol Hill

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(Image: Queer/Pride Festival)

One of the biggest concerns amid the complaints around the annual Capitol Hill Block Party’s three-day domination of Pike/Pine is that the music festival can leave some of the neighborhood’s core communities and businesses out of the fun.

After years of focus on proposals to reshape the July music event, organizers of the Queer/Pride Festival June celebration of queer culture and Pride are, instead, embracing the Block Party route.

The 2023 QPF, as the producers are calling it, will take on closer to CHBP proportions. UPDATE: Burgess points out the footprint of the festival will remain constrained to 11th Ave — far from Block Party’s much larger footprint that extends across an area stretching from Broadway to 12th.

“QPF returns this summer bigger and better than ever,” producer Joey Burgess of the Queer/Bar family of businesses announced Tuesday about plans for the 2023 event. “We’re lighting up our stages with some of the hottest artists from around the world, and we’ve expanded our overall footprint to include a larger stage, bigger screens, and more food and beverage offerings.”

This week’s lineup announcement doesn’t quite rival the Block Party’s 2023 acts dropped last week — but the QPF party is clearly growing. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Triumphant September return readies Trans Pride Seattle for future Junes

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Volunteer Park and its new amphitheater proved a worthy host for the return of the annual Trans Pride celebration in Seattle. September also held up its end of the bargain.

Friday night on a gorgeous late summer Seattle night, hundreds gathered in the park for a return of the important LGBTQ celebration that organizers decided to move back to September to provide an easier logistical and financial restart after years of pandemic postponements.

CHS reported here on the effort to bring back Trans Pride Seattle and its move to Volunteer Park, a Capitol HIll setting with a long history providing a space and center for queer events and rallies including its part in Seattle’s first Pride celebrations in 1974. Continue reading →

Trans Pride Seattle returns with a September night for togetherness and freedom in Volunteer Park

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A scene from Trans Pride Seattle 2019

By Elizabeth Turnbull

By 2019, Trans Pride Seattle had grown into a surprisingly massive event with huge crowds rallying on Capitol Hill for a celebration of civil rights, love, and good times. 2020 brought the pandemic and a move to online-only events to mark traditions like Pride. 2021 came and went without an in-person Trans Pride celebration.

Now this year, it is time to rally together again but Trans Pride 2022 will be an event in transition, indeed. Seattle’s Gender Justice League has recovered in time to pull together a September version of the annual event that will bring a different take on the celebration. Moved to Volunteer Park, Trans Pride in 2022 will focus on being together, for this year at least, moving on from its past marching through the streets of the Hill. The police are a pain to work with, organizers say. Instead, Friday night, the crowds will come together to hear speakers and entertainers to enjoy a summer evening in Volunteer Park.

The event is designed to create a safe and celebratory space to bolster a sense of togetherness and freedom.

“Trans Pride in itself is just a beacon for the general trans community,“ Ganesha Gold Buffalo, a SafeHouse advocate with the Gender Justice League told CHS. ”And it allows us to gather in a space where we’re in a time of being disconnected from the community on a lot of different levels.” Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Pride returns to its rightful space on Capitol Hill

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With photographs by Ananya Mishra and Lisa Hagen Glynn

Against a backdrop of a nation’s eroding civil rights, Seattle came to Capitol Hill to celebrate freedom Saturday. The return in full of Pride celebrations in the neighborhood was also a celebration of doggie drag and cooling stations.

With bright sun and the first truly summer-like temperatures of 2022 in Seattle, thousands partied on Broadway at the street festival and in Pike/Pine at bar and restaurant celebrations and beer gardens as Pride weekend took its rightful place in June.

In 2021, concerns over the continued spread of COVID-19 pushed Capitol Hill celebrations into September. In 2020, the celebrations in the first months of the pandemic gave way to online gatherings and continued protest during a summer of demonstrations over Black Lives Matter and police violence.

There were many happy returns on the day. Saturday night, the Seattle Dyke March rallied for the first time in years at Seattle Central’s plaza and marched through Pike/Pine and Broadway again after going virtual during the pandemic. Continue reading →

Including the return of the Seattle Dyke March to Broadway, here’s a map of Capitol Hill’s major Pride weekend events

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The Dyke March will fully return for the first time since 2019

Source: City of Seattle

With traditions like the Seattle Dyke March back in the flesh on Broadway for the first time in years, Pride weekend on Capitol Hill is so busy, you’re going to need a map.

Fortunately, the good people at the Special Events Committee charged with organizing City Hall’s resources to help support Seattle’s incredibly busy schedule of major festivals and gatherings have created this mapping of street closures around the major Pride events across the Hill starting Friday night and continuing through Sunday’s big parade downtown. Continue reading →

CHS Pics | Some celebrated Juneteenth in the Central District with a roller party — Get ready for Pride skate dancing this weekend on Capitol Hill

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As Seattle observes the holiday for the first time with a quiet Monday at City Hall, there was a wealth of Juneteenth celebrations across the city and the Central District Sunday including a day of roller skate dancing in Judkins Park.

The Juneteenth Celebration: Skate Party & Community Day was hosted by the Northwest African American Museum and included complimentary skate rentals for people to join the fun.

You’ll want to keep those wheels rolling. Pride on Capitol Hill will feature a roller party at the smooth and well paved AIDS Memorial Pathway Plaza on Saturday: Continue reading →

CHS Pics | After big Seattle events postponed last June, Pride 2022 starts with day of music and celebration in Volunteer Park

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Sure it was corporate. And sure the sky was gay gray. But this is Seattle circa 2022. Summer starts around July 5th. Big companies love Pride. And people like a good excuse to gather, dance, and enjoy a beer garden in Volunteer Park. And then there is the whole overcoming the pandemic thing. Last year, Pride’s big events didn’t even happen in June.

Saturday, Seattle’s return of official™ Pride season kicked off with Seattle Pride in the Park, the annual music celebration that has filled Volunteer Park with bands and LGBTQ+ love and community in recent years before pandemic disruptions. Continue reading →

Pride 2022 ready to get back to June traditions on Capitol Hill with a clean-up in Cal Anderson, bands in Volunteer Park

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A past scene from Pride in Volunteer Park

Seattle’s Pride was moved to September last year.

As Pride 2022 approaches, last weekend’s cloudy skies might have felt a little like fall — or, at times, winter — but the celebrations of LGBTQ+ communities are ready to resume their rightful place in June after last year’s pandemic delays.

The fun and celebration on Capitol Hill begins this weekend with the return of two popular traditions. Continue reading →

Pride 2022 on Capitol Hill will include some bigger stages amid return of familiar celebrations

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A scene from last year’s Pride on Broadway

After years of pandemic challenges, the are big plans for Pride celebrations on Capitol Hill this summer including acts on a Pike/Pine stage that will give Capitol Hill Block Party a run for its money. Meanwhile, the downtown Seattle Pride celebrations will move on without a major corporate sponsor.

In Pike/Pine, there will be a big show with events boasting star-studded lineups including Kim Petras and Iggy Azalea performing at Queer/Pride. Organizer Joey Burgess, who owns Queer/Bar and Cuff Complex, aimed to create impressive lineups for 2022, hosting a wider selection of performers than ever.

“We definitely programmed more heavily this year and tried to curate two festivals with amazing, inclusive national and local talent,” said Burgess.

In 2021, concerns over the continued spread of COVID-19 pushed Capitol Hill celebrations into September.

While Queer/Bar is ready to try something new in 2022, the Wildrose will return from its two-year Pride hiatus with a return to its popular Pride past with an expanded street party area with live performances.

“This year, we are concentrating on bringing local, diverse talent to our stage,” co-owner Shelley Brothers tells CHS. Continue reading →

With 2021 Pride celebrations put on hold, Volunteer Park hosting All Together Now ‘LGBTQIA+ fall celebration’

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This year’s Volunteer Park Pride Festival was canceled due to the coronavirus

We saw what a Labor Day celebration of Pride looked like on Broadway last month. Seattle’s response to pandemic delays and postponements will continue this weekend with a special October Pride gathering in Volunteer Park.

Seattle Pride, organizer of the annual downtown parade and celebration as well as the yearly gathering for fun and music in Volunteer Park each June, is bringing its communities together in the park for a special All Together Now event this October Saturday:

Headlining this year’s event is Seattle-based producer, DJ, and artist Chong the Nomad, and will be hosted by KEXP-on air host Marco Collins and drag queen favorite Betty Wetter. The event will also feature food trucks, alcohol garden, Drag Queen Bingo, 360-degree photo booth, and a variety of other activities.

The LGBTQIA+ fall celebration is free to attend and will feature performers, activities, food, drink, and more. It will take place on the large lawn in front of the park’s conservatory near the dahlia garden from 3 to 7 PM — rain or shine. Continue reading →