The DTLA Proud Festival — which celebrates downtown Los Angeles and its growing LGBTQ community — will return to Pershing Square and has expanded to two days. More than 9,000 people attended last year’s festival. Photo: DTLA Proud.
LOS ANGELES — The DTLA Proud Festival — which celebrates downtown Los Angeles and its growing LGBTQ community — will return to Pershing Square and has expanded to two days.
The event will take place August 26 and 27. Presale tickets, $5 single day and $8 two-day passes, will be available July 1 on the DTLA Proud website.
About 9,000 people attended last year, and organizers are projecting about 25,000 will attend this time, said Oliver Luke Alpuche, the president of DTLA Proud, the nonprofit that organizes the event.
“We are celebrating what’s happening downtown. We have three distinct gay bars,” said Alpuche, who owns Redline. Bar Mattachine and Precinct are the other two bars.
“We are not throwing our own pride event or challenging other prides,” he said.
The festival will feature a pop-up water park, community booths, food trucks, live art installations, interactive exhibits and an area dedicated to Los Angeles queer history.
Drag star duo The Boulet Brothers will host the main stage, which “will showcase the diverse talents of both local and national performers in support of our mission to celebrate everyone’s story, to spread optimism, to grow our community and to expand our definition of diversity,” according to the event’s Facebook page.
DJs and performers will be announced in the coming months, Alpuche said.
