Cleveland Pride

Cleveland Pride celebrates its 25th Lesbian Gay Bi Trans Pride Parade and Festival on Saturday, June 29th, 2013.

Each June communities all over the world celebrate Gay Pride Month to commemorate the Stonewall Riots of 1969 that sparked the gay rights movement in America. Cleveland’s Pride is among the first half dozen such celebrations started in the U.S., making our Parade and Festival among the longest continuing Pride events in the country.

Our pride celebration began as a small event located on W. 29th Street, a small side street on the near west side with several hundred people, one stage and a dozen vendors. We added a Parade to our festivities in 1990 with 600 walking tall. In 1994, we came out of our closet moving first to public square and then in 1996 to our current location at Voinovich Park, behind the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, enjoying the amazing Cleveland skyline and the wonders of Lake Erie.

Our Parade steps off from W. 3rd and St. Clair, proceeds east on Lakeside, then north on E. 9th taking over 3,000 folks including over 35 floats and 50 community groups directly into Voinovich Park. Our Festival features three stages, a food court, a beer garden, dancing and in partnership with the Lesbian Gay Community Service Center also includes a children’s pavilion, youth zone and senior space. Our festival has grown to over 22,100 attendees, gay and straight, who come to celebrate our LGBT community and demonstrate our success building bridges within our community and all of Greater Cleveland.