Seattle’s 2021 Pride wasn’t canceled but a lot of the fun was put on hold. Organizers hope to rise above the challenges of the COVID pandemic with a two day street festival and LGBTQIA celebration this Labor Day weekend on Broadway.

PrideFest Capitol Hill will turn Broadway from John to Roy into an outdoor festival space Saturday and Sunday with speakers, music, and performances, plus specials from local businesses, food trucks, and beer gardens. The event will be free and it will echo with the realities of this second summer of pandemic — you’ll need proof of vaccination to get into a PrideFest beer garden just like at most of the neighborhood’s nightlife venues, clubs, bars, and restaurants.

It comes amid a return of indoor masking requirements after a surge in transmission rates driven especially by the delta variant’s spread among the unvaccinated. The festival also comes as part of a slate of large events moving forwards as officials and organizers have decided to soldier on with plans.

“There were a number of factors that came into play when deciding whether to hold a festival this year,” PrideFest producer and Broadway BIA director Egan Orion said in an announcement about the festival. “LGBTQIA+ people—especially younger people—are more likely to have spent the pandemic in lockdown with families that either don’t know who they are or don’t accept them because they’re queer or trans. Pride is for some the one weekend every year when people can truly be themselves. We believe we can keep each other safe through vaccines and masking, but the mental health side of things is something we need to address too, which was a driving consideration for us in making an in-person PrideFest happen this year.”

The Washington State Fair also will open in Puyallup this weekend. Meanwhile, producers of the again postponed Capitol Hill Block Party will host a new music festival this weekend outside at Seattle Center.

A Labor Day Pride event on Capitol Hill follows a more subdued observation of the annual celebration in June as most Seattle events were moved online. On Capitol Hill, many marked Pride by attending the dedication of the new AIDS Memorial Pathway connecting Capitol Hill Station to Cal Anderson Park.

This weekend will bring a much different opportunity to gather and celebrate on Broadway. Organizers say the challenges of the pandemic have created a community-driven festival full of diverse artists and speakers.

Orion says PrideFest brought on a group of ten festival co-producers to provide much need help to hire talent from across the community to fill the festival’s main stage at Harrison and a second dance stage at Roy:

This more distributed model creates more opportunity for queer, trans, gender-expansive, and BIPOC artist curators and the communities they represent, for a more inclusive representation at all of PrideFest’s stages this year. The full list of PrideFest Capitol Hill 2021 festival co-directors: Adra Boo, Anita Spritzer, BeautyBoiz, Egan Orion, Eric Blu, Hailey Tayatha, Jack Mozie, Pride ASIA, Ruth Soto, Seattle Dyke March, and Tinashéa Monét.

Those artists were another reason to move forward and hold the festival. “Holding an in-person event with sponsors and exhibitors gave us the resources to put money into the pockets of artists, and by focusing on an all local artist roster, we keep that money and that impact local,” Orion said.

Artists playing at PrideFest this weekend come from a wide diversity of backgrounds. Both days will feature a Latinx showcase. Pride ASIA has an hour-long show on Saturday. The Dyke March, a Pride weekend staple, will have a showcase of artists and speakers at 6 p.m. on Saturday, when on a normal Pride Weekend they’d be stepping off for their Dyke March. Sunday starts with an hour of Family Pride, with Aleksa Manila’s Drag Queen Storytime and a Doggy Drag Contest, followed at 2 p.m. by an hour of all-indigenous drag queens led by Hailey Tayatha (Quileute), and the day ends with a Trans Power Hour curated by Tinashéa Monét featuring trans and gender non-binary talent. Both days, Adra Boo is featuring showcases of all Black talent under the moniker #HOTBLACKSUNDAY. And of course, the weekend will be peppered with drag queens and kings, including an hour each day curated by Anita Spritzer.

The dance stage will feature some of the LGBTQIA+’s favorite DJs. On Saturday, the stage will feature: Art of Hot and Carissa Illy, DJ Derek Pavone, live singers and a DJ from the Crescent Lounge, DJ Riz, and Ramiro and LGSP from Uniting Souls Music. On Sunday, the dance stage will feature: Art of Hot and Carissa Illy (KDJE), Gag Reflex and Toya B (Kremwerk), Colby B (NYC, Seattle), DJ Dana Dub, and DJ Tommy K.

Main stage hostesses will include Aleksa Manila, Gaysha Starr, and, on Sunday, DonnaTella Howe.

The Capitol Hill Station plaza, meanwhile, will host a one-night only return of Three Dollar Bill Cinema outdoor movies with a free outdoor screening of “Camp” at 8 PM on Saturday.

Wear your mask. PrideFest is requiring face coverings for all non-vaccinated guests and strongly urging those who are vaccinated to mask up for the festival. And don’t forget your proof of vaccination to get into the beer gardens.

Learn more at seattlepridefest.org.

UPDATE: Local businesses are preparing:

PLEASE HELP KEEP CHS PAYWALL-FREE!
Subscribe to CHS to help us pay writers and photographers to cover the neighborhood. CHS is a pay what you can community news site with no required sign-in or paywall. Become a subscriber to help us cover the neighborhood for as little as $5 a month.