Pridefest 2023 was a huge success
On October 22, thousands of people gathered for Pridefest 2023 presented by OutRVA at the Bon Secours Training Center to celebrate Richmond’s LGBTQ community. The event, originally scheduled in September but postponed due to weather, featured more than 100 vendors, good food, good drinks, two stages of entertainment and a ton of fun for everyone. Our Allianz Youth Pride Pavilion brought hundreds of LGBTQ and allied youth and their families out for a day of fun, love and acceptance. Our local drag community showed up and showed out! And our headliner, Mýa, had us moving and grooving until way after dark!
We want to especially acknowledge the incredible work of our all-volunteer Virginia Pride committee who worked so hard to pivot to reschedule and re-plan Pridefest after September’s postponement. This amazing team of folks had only a few short weeks to plan and execute a massive festival that normally takes months to produce. They not only gave us the Pridefest we hoped for—they gave us the Pridefest our community deserves.
Pridefest would not be possible without the support of our sponsors, community partners and volunteers. Thank you to our Presenting Sponsor, Richmond Region Tourism’s OutRVA campaign, to our Youth Pride Pavilion sponsor, Allianz and to all the businesses and companies that contributed to Pridefest and ensured that it stays a free event that is open and accessible to all. Thank you, too, to our community partners who supported our Youth Pride Pavilion, including He, She, Ze and We, Lewis Ginter Botanical Gardens, Side by Side, the Children’s Museum of Richmond, SPARC, Maymont, and the Richmond Flying Squirrels. Thank you to all our volunteers who showed up early and stayed late to help set up, clean up and to keep the festival moving without a hitch.
Finally, we are grateful to the staff, board and leadership of Diversity Richmond for their guidance, support and encouragement as we navigated a particularly challenging year. We can’t wait to see you all for Pridefest 2024!
Please enjoy some wonderful moments that were captured by our Pridefest photographer, Michael Hostetler.