Denver PrideFest Mixes In-Person and Virtual Events

Although small gatherings are slowly becoming safe again, large-scales events can still pose a risk.

That is why Denver PrideFest will mix in-person and virtual activities to create a hybrid event this year. The celebration, hosted by The Center on Colfax, will take place June 26-27 and was planned to ensure the safety of all participants. 

“We are not going to be Civic Center Park with half a million people,” Events Director John White says. “This year, we came up with the idea of doing Pride hubs. We are partnering with 10 locations around the city and creating opportunities for people to have a drive-by Pride. We also tried to reach out to partners in the community that were not just focused downtown, so that we could focus on areas of Denver suburbs where people might not want to drive so far just to get to one of these Pride hubs.”

Each hub will provide participants with smaller, safer gatherings to celebrate Pride with the community, with each hub following COVID-19 guidelines. Events will include a family-friendly hub with story time and kid-centric booths featuring outdoor music at the Denver Nature and Science Museum; The Center on Colfax will host an outdoor event featuring food trucks, a DJ, and rooftop entertainment; and the Sie FilmCenter will host a movie event. 

Some events will have capacity limits and ticket requirements.

Denver PrideFest will also feature an in-person, 5k run in Cheesman Park where runners will choose one of two times to start the run to maintain social distancing, and a virtual version of the run will be available for those who would rather complete the race using their own route. 

Last year, Denver PrideFest was completely virtual. According to White, the response was overwhelming.

“We literally had six weeks to turn around and make everything happen virtually. I said, ‘I will be happy if 100 people watch everything,’ and we had almost two-and-a-half million hits between our YouTube channel, the website when everything aired live, and we were on Channel 7 for the parade through our Rocky Mountain PBS partnership,” White says. 

Because of last year’s success, the Center on Colfax plans to continue with virtual components for future festivals. 

“We are going to always keep a virtual component going forward for all our events,” White says. “We can reach people who are homebound or are not comfortable in large crowds. We have noticed that is a huge need within the community, so we are going to keep a virtual element.”

Denver PrideFest is the Center on Colfax’s biggest fundraiser, typically bringing in more than $1 million to the organization to help support Colorado’s LGBTQ community. 

Usually held on the third weekend in June, this year’s celebration has been moved to the last weekend of the month.

“We were grandfathered into the park situation, always that third weekend, and it always coincided with Juneteenth Music Festival,” White says. “It was presented to the city, and the city was gracious enough to allow us to move that weekend so we could give it to Juneteenth. In future years, if they choose to expand and make it larger, they could do that. We were also hoping to work with them to create some sort of Black Pride celebration, which looks like it will happen this year.”

Another noticeable change about this year’s event is the entertainment component. While most Pride festivals have celebrity headliners and special guest stars, White says mostly local performers will be featured.

“We are working with Rocky Mountain PBS again, and we are doing a special that will air three times during Pride that is going to feature not just local drag entertainers, but some vocalists, some bands, and we are also going to highlight what it is like to be a Black entertainer within the Denver community,” White says.

White also wants to remind people to be smart and stay safe.

“We have a responsibility to keep reminding people that we are still in an active pandemic,” he says. “They need to be patient because bars and restaurants are just reopening, and we want to support them as much as possible during Pride because they have been hit so hard during this. So, get out and support local!”

For more information, updates, and to see a full list of hubs, visit DenverPride.org.