Twin Cities Pride celebrates 53 years this weekend. And that means you can expect some fun new attractions says Director of Programming at Twin Cities Pride Kelsey Alto.
"You never know what's going to happen in the pride office, and one day our boss was like, we bought a bull," says Alto. "And so a mechanical bull showed up just in time to not get tariffed from China. And so now it's our ride bull. It's a fundraiser for us. It's $5 and you get like a fun little hat if you can last on the bull for eight seconds, and then the person who lasts the longest over the weekend gets a trophy at the end."
And after a successful first year, they are also bringing back the Queer Rights tent for a second year.
"Which is doubled in size," Alto explains. "It's all local queer authors, which is amazing. We do a couple book fairs every year and those have really grown in popularity and so this is the answer to that at our festival."
Of course, there's also some staples such as the Pride Parade which takes place on Sunday starting at 11:00 a.m. The parade starts at 3rd & Hennepin and proceeds down Hennepin to Spruce.
The Festival is in Loring Park Saturday and Sunday, with lots of other events spread out over the weekend. Crews have been setting up Loring Park the last two weeks in preparation for an even larger festival crowd than last year, when over half-a-million people attended.
"We've had such an influx of people moving to Minnesota, so every time we've been posting about what's new at Pride, what's coming up for the festival, there are people in our comments saying I'm so excited," notes Alto. "I just moved here from Texas. I'm really excited to get connected to the community, this is such a beautiful opportunity to not only get connected to the community but also the resources that are available in Minnesota."
This year's event will have four food courts, 650 vendors, three music stages, plus two beer and one THC garden.