FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
FRIDAY, JUNE 25, 2021

PrideFest, the 501(c)3 behind Seattle’s Pride festivals, is proud to announce PrideFest Capitol Hill, happening this Labor Day Weekend, September 4-5, 2021. PrideFest has no plans to hold any events in Downtown Seattle in 2021. PrideFest organizers are working with Gender Justice League (the producers of Trans Pride Seattle), Seattle Dyke March, and other non-profits to integrate elements of their traditional yearly activations into the weekend’s festivities. PrideFest is also coordinating with LGBTQIA+-owned bars and clubs to participate, as able, in the temporary Pride weekend move to Labor Day Weekend though with the coming June 30 full re-opening, PrideFest expects that for these venues, it will be an entire summer of Pride on Capitol Hill.

PrideFest is one of the largest arts festivals in Seattle, celebrating the region’s LGBTQIA+ community. For 2021, PrideFest is starting a new program with 10-12 festival co-directors, a distributed model creating 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.

Historically, PrideFest has been responsible for producing both PrideFest Capitol Hill and PrideFest Seattle Center during the last full weekend of June. The weekend and all the activities, from the Pride Parade to all the street parties put on by bars and clubs, usually attract hundreds of thousands of people to celebrate Pride. Due to COVID restrictions and a delayed re-opening in 2021, PrideFest organizers have been working with the city since late winter to produce an inclusive, Capitol Hill-based festival in late summer. PrideFest finally received their preliminary permit from the city’s Special Events Committee today, Friday, June 25, 2021.

“We think that late summer is the sweet spot for PrideFest this year,” says festival director, Egan Orion. “The lingering COVID restrictions would have made our traditional festivals impossible, and the historic heatwave would have made any activation this weekend dangerous for many, especially the more health vulnerable members of our communities.”

For those going to this weekend’s smaller events, from The AIDS Memorial Pathway Dedication on Saturday, June 26, or to TAKING B(L)ACK PRIDE at Jimi Hendrix Park—both events that PrideFest supports—PrideFest encourages everyone to take the heat seriously and to protect fellow community members from heat exposure.

PrideFest has no association with Capitol Hill Pride, run by Charlette LeFevre and Philip Lipson.

About PrideFest

PrideFest is a 501(c)3 non-profit organization, founded in 2015 to serve the Puget Sound region’s LGBTQIA+ community through arts and advocacy.

For more information:

Egan Orion
Executive Director, PrideFest
Tel: 206.701.0272
E‐mail: info@pridefest.org