After cancelling PrideFest 2020 and 2021 due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the festival organizer’s, Milwaukee Pride, announced a special “PridetoberFest” to be held on October 8- 9 at Henry Maier Festival Park.
PrideFest usually launches the city’s lakefront festival season on the first weekend of June. This year, it will act the summer’s official closing festival. “PridetoberFest” is particularly well timed. October is traditionally both “Coming Out Month” and ”LGBTQ History Month.”
Organizing the event is not without it challenges. As with all of Milwaukee’s other summer events, the easing of COVID-19 restrictions beginning June 1 offered the opportunity to postpone rather than cancel Cream City’s traditional line up of summer festivals, fairs and other outdoor happenings. Given the relatively short window of accommodating weather, now made even shorter, the narrow number of available dates quickly filled up.
However, according to Milwaukee Pride, the October dates actually allow Milwaukee’s LGBTQ community to reengage, celebrate the end of the pandemic, and to bridge the gap back to normalcy.
With details promised to be announced in August, Milwaukee Pride has given some hints about PridetoberFest. Entertainment will largely draw on local talent. The event’s footprint will be smaller, extending from the Miller Main Stage to the Dance Pavilion. There will, however, be an additional area, the Northwestern Mutual Community Park, outside of the traditional PrideFest grounds with be used for family-friendly activities. Festival hours of operation will also be reduced. On Friday, gates open at 3 p.m. and close at midnight. Saturday hours are from noon to midnight.
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While deemed a “more casual” event, the experienced gained organizing it may portend future end of summer Pride programming in addition to PrideFest in June.
