This month, Twin Cities Pride returns to Loring Park for its 50th anniversary. And after a cancelled event in 2020 and a scaled-back version last year, the community is ready to gather for the country’s third-largest free Pride celebration. It’s not all glitter and glam though: The event, which has stretched over five decades now, marks a history filled with both hard-won victories and painful losses.
“We’re working on showing the history of Pride throughout the event and providing a look back on how far we have come,” says Twin Cities Pride executive director Dot Belstler.
Head to Loring Park June 25–26 to celebrate Pride—and mark a golden anniversary of change. tcpride.org
350
- Estimated number of vendors at Pride this year.
350,000
- The number of Pride attendees in non- pandemic years, with 100,000–150,000 typically attending the march.
13
- Number of years Dot Belstler has served as Twin Cities Pride’s executive director (She’s retiring this year—look for a booth at the festival where people can voice their thoughts on where the organization goes from here.)
1981
- Year the Pride Committee was first allowed to close a portion of Hennepin Avenue—for just one hour.
$13.4 million
- The economic impact of TC Pride in Hennepin County in 2018, according to a University of Minnesota study.
3,000
- The approximate number of people who participate in the Pride march (formerly known as the parade): “We’re getting back to the roots of the organization,” Belstler says. “It was a march before it was a parade.”