GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — June is Pride Month and the Grand Rapids Pride Festival took place Saturday.
It's been happening since 1988 and is now in its 34th year. The Pride Festival has grown into one of the biggest single-day events in Grand Rapids.
Organizers say the Grand Rapids Pride Festival worked to create a safe, open and inclusive environment for Grand Rapids community members to celebrate who they are.
The festival ran Saturday, June 18, from 12 – 10 p.m. at Calder Plaza. Tickets were free, but organizers say donations are always welcome.
This year’s emcee was DeeDee Chaunte, a house diva at Rumors Nightclub where she has many titles that include former Miss Gay Greater Grand Rapids and Miss Am Rumors.
This year, three tables were set up throughout the Pride Festival to serve as combined information/security/accessibility booths. The staff at the booths worked to help attendees with:
- Information about the Grand Rapids Pride Center & services
- Information about the Pride Festival schedule of events
- Cold water
- Free earplugs
- A low-cost rainbow surgical mask to help you stay safe & support the Pride Center
- Get information on disability accessibility issues & provisions at the Pride Festival
- Register a concern or complaint about accessibility so that we can plan better for next year
- Get security assistance
For this year’s festival, GR Pride Center Executive Director Jazz McKinney told FOX 17 that organizers decided against having a police presence because they don’t want visitors to feel threatened or scared at the festival.
RELATED: Grand Rapids Pride Festival opts out of police presence, hires security agencies instead
Instead, GR Pride hired two security agencies to keep the festival safe.
“Both of them are affiliated with the LGBTQ community, which was very important to me because not only am I supporting the LGBTQ community by hiring them, but they understand the uniqueness of our community and why we don’t want police there,” said McKinney.
They say this decision wasn’t only about recent events, but also came down to the history of pride.
This year’s festival was a smoke-free and vape-free event. Organizers say attendees were welcome to smoke outside the perimeters of the Pride Fest grounds.
GR Pride Fest is the Grand Rapids Pride Center’s largest fundraising event. The GR Pride Center is a nonprofit that was established in 1988. It’s the longest-running LBGTQ+ resource center in the state.
"I love Grand Rapids Pride because you see everybody who you'd want to see in a day, in a day," said Drag Queen Cherupsinn.
Beauty Beyond Drag Productions invited Cherupsinn to make a special guest appearance at the beginning of the event.
"Really cute. It was a thing where we had like 14 entertainers altogether, I think. I don't know. Lots of us. Just one after another. But now I'm just walking around, saying hey, enjoying Pride. It's really fun," Cherupsinn added.
Here's a look at some of this year's entertainment:
