Organizers of Seattle’s annual Pride parade announced the 2020 edition of the downtown event is officially canceled and will replaced by online celebrations:

To our Seattle Pride family, we want to share with you that Seattle Pride, Seattle PrideFest and Trans Pride have made the collective decision to shift our 2020 annual Pride celebrations to a series of virtual events. The decision was made out of an abundance of caution – and concern for our community’s health – after conferring with local public health officials and the City of Seattle.

Organizers have posted a survey to begin collecting ideas on what types of virtual events “would be most beneficial and enjoyable for our community.”

2019 marked the official 45th anniversary of Seattle Pride with the Capitol Hill elements of the celebration like Trans Pride and the Seattle Dyke March drawing record crowds and supporting events across the city. The early days of Seattle Pride when the parade marched down Broadway and finished with a celebration in Volunteer Park have given way to a much larger, citywide celebration with PrideFest at Seattle Center and on the Hill at Cal Anderson and on Broadway..

The cultural impact of the decision can hopefully be softened but the economic hopes for many Hill venues will be mostly dashed.  The move follows a series of cancellations and postponements of major events. Last week, CHS reported on producers pulling the plug on this summer’s Capitol Hill Block Party.

June Pride is another story. Formal events like the parade and the annual Broadway street festival won’t be happening but glimmers of hope still remain for smaller scale, non-virtual celebrations on Capitol Hill. There will be no beer gardens. If we’re lucky, it will be safe enough to go to a small garden party or two and celebrate with our closest friends.

UPDATE: Seattle PrideFest organizer Egan Orion provided additional information about the decision:

The June events have been postponed out of an abundance of caution. We are looking to late summer dates and hope it’s safe enough for us to hold large community gatherings at that point. Since that’s over 4 months away, there’s no way to know, but don’t give up on hope for some sort of Pride celebration in 2020 (if we can do it safely, of course).

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