Long Beach Pride Festival Canceled 30 Minutes Before It Was Set To Begin!
I used to go to Long Beach Pride every year, and it was always the best Pride weekend in California, with San Diego’s Pride a close runner-up. The event always felt massive (then again, I could’ve just been massively drunk) due to the large festival grounds across Long Beach’s sprawling Marina Green Park, and it was well-attended by thousands of people. On Friday afternoon, about 30 minutes before the festival gates were set to open, the city of Long Beach announced that the festival was canceled due to safety permitting issues. Via CBS:
The City of Long Beach is hosting the annual Pride Parade on Sunday, but the bulk of the weekend’s scheduled events are not happening. The Pride Festival at Marina Green Park has been cancelled due to safety permitting issues, according to the city. According to an official city news release, the Long Beach Pride Festival “Will not be able to take place this year as sufficient information to safely permit the event has not been made available by the event organizers.” The festival runs independently from the city and was scheduled to begin today at 5 p.m., but the city said just a half hour before, at 4:30 p.m., the required documentation still had not been submitted, causing a last-minute cancellation.
This is insane for a number of reasons. Booths, vendors, and entertainers were obviously either already set in place or on their way to the festival grounds. Iconic house music legend Robin S. was set to perform Saturday night. In addition to locals, there are undoubtedly thousands of people from out of town who made their way to Long Beach for all the weekend events. On the bright side, all the bars and restaurants (Falcon, Hamburger Mary’s, Mine Shaft, et al.) are going to be overflowing with even more people on what is already a crazy busy weekend, so that means even more money for the queens, bartenders, and local gay business owners. Good.
The Long Beach Pride organization has of course been plagued with financial struggles for years, and that likely played a role in the cancellation and permitting issues. LB Pride is not funding the parade on Sunday, which is still taking place, since it’s hosted and paid for by the city.
A member of Long Beach Pride issued a statement in the video below, and you can see she’s at the festival where things were already set up.
Here was the line-up for the main stage this weekend. I wonder if they all still get paid? Yikes…
