Date/Time:
06/13/2015 | Saturday | All Day
Location:
Crockett St. Entertainment District
Crockett Street
Beaumont,Texas
77701
Categories
Second Annual Beaumont Gay Pride set for June 13
The Beaumont Pride 2015 committee has officially announced a Pride walk and street festival for June 13.
“Our community is thrilled with the growth we’ve experience since last year’s historic first Beaumont Pride,” Shawn Hare, Pride committee co-chair said. “We expect participation numbers to more than double for 2015.”
The LGBTQIA Pride walk will commence at 11:30 a.m., beginning at 1393 Broadway. Participants will continue through downtown and end at the intersection of Pearl and Crockett Street. The family friendly Pride festival will open at noon. Indoor events are scheduled at several different venues including The Gig, Tequila Rok and The Red Room. All indoor venue access passes can be purchased for $7.00 at any venue door, and is free for children under 12.
Tequila Rok will serve as the live music venue and will feature an all-day lineup, including Beaumont’s Mad Maude and the Hatters, Austin based Calliope Musicals and New Orleans based Prom Date.
The Gig will serve as the performance arts venue and will feature drag queens from East Texas and Southwest Louisiana, including Kofi Cakes, Olivia Gardner and Tisha Flowers.
“Pride fest 2014 received a number of awards and accolades, including best Southeast Texas Festival,” Hare said. “We’re working to live up to that standard by bringing in the very best in food, entertainment, arts, artisans, music and drag queens.”
Downtown businesses such as Suga’s Deep South Cuisine and Jazz Bar, Whiskey Dix, Fame and others will also be participating in the day’s festivities at their respective locations.
The group has witnessed tremendous growth within the local LGBTQIA and ally community since their first Pride in 2014.
“It is a thrilling experience when people from Houston to Manhattan tell us that they want to come to Beaumont Pride,” Hare said. “Beaumont is the center of an extremely rich culture and people from all over want to come here to experience it.
Beaumont Pride’s 2015 theme is “Preserving Our Past – Ensuring Our Future,” which was revealed at the organization’s April Coming Out Ball.
“Our theme is multi-faceted. We want to celebrate the roots of our local LGBTQIA community and culture, but we also want to set the stage for healthy growth in our area,” Hare said.
Pride, which is traditionally held during the month of June, originated with the June 1969 Stonewall Riots in New York City. The Riots were a violent backlash by the gay community in response to police brutality and raids on gay establishments. Stonewall is also known as the catalyst of the gay rights movement and origin of Pride.
“We recognize that we must learn from our history, both locally and nationally, in order to meet our mission – to use education, participation and visibility to develop a strong and sustainable Southeast Texas queer community,” Hare said.
There are over 100 volunteers committed, and subcommittees have been meeting for nearly six months.
“This is a Gay Pride unlike anywhere else in the country” Hare said. “We’re queer, Tex-Mex, Creole and Southern country, and we’re proud of that.”
For more information on the Beaumont Pride Walk and Festival and for hotel reservations visit the event page on Facebook, email Beaumontpride@gmail.com or visit www.beaumont-pride.org.
