As Edmonton welcomes the long, sunny days of June, volunteers and organizers are hard at work, drag performers are beating their mugs to the gods, and the city is gearing up for a fierce summer of Pride.
While most cities confine Pride Month to June, Edmonton’s festivities stretch across the summer. The season officially kicks off with Drag Fest in Churchill Square May 31 to June 2, and culminates with the Edmonton Pride Festival in late August, which will include the return of a highly-anticipated event.
For the first time in seven years, the Edmonton Pride Parade will once again march through downtown.
“There’s a lot of newcomers to Edmonton, a number of people who have joined the queer community and have never seen a Pride Parade before,” explains Trevor Watson, executive producer of Edmonton Pride Fest.
“There are youth who’ve never experienced it because it’s been seven years. We’ve done a lot of community engagement, that was the number one thing we heard — it was heartbreaking to hear how many youth have had to travel hours to experience a Pride Parade.”
But while we’ll have to wait a few more months for the return of Pride Parade, June is full of fun. In addition to Drag Fest, events such as the Pride Block Party on June 7 are being organised by Edmonton-based Fruit Loop Society of Alberta. Evolution Wonderlounge has a whole host of pride activities taking place each weekend.
To help Edmontonians keep track of the packed calendar, local queer historian Ron Byers compiles a list of Pride events each year, available at prideedmonton.ca. Although, the first thing you need to know is that the Pride Parade isn’t until Saturday, August 23, 2025.
For Watson, Pride is about far more than entertainment. “It’s always wonderful when we can bring together people of different backgrounds and bring them together in a celebration where we can all unite with something in common,” he says.
“I think it’s always important to note that queer communities are extremely diverse communities. We have queer people of all religions, queer people that are members of all different political parties. So it’s a very, very diverse community.”
And yes — he’s also excited to see the outfits.
“The youth are just so creative and seeing some of the amazing Pride-inspired outfits they come in — so with the return of the parade this year, we’re expecting to see a lot of colour and rainbow in the downtown streets.”
