People lined Santa Monica Boulevard in West Hollywood on June 10, 2018, and cheered the participants in the LA Pride Parade. Photo: Jon Viscott/City of West Hollywood
WEST HOLLYWOOD —The LA Pride Parade will include organizational and community grand marshals and be broadcast live on television for the first time in the event’s history.
LA Pride Parade Grand Marshals
Phill Wilson will be the Community Grand Marshal and the Los Angeles LGBT Center will be the Organizational Grand Marshal, said Christopher Street West, the nonprofit group that produces the annual LA Pride Festival and Parade.
“The LGBTQI community has come a long way in the last 50 years. It has not been without heartache, pain, sacrifice and growth,” Wilson said in a statement. “I am humbled to be among such a powerful and diverse group of grand marshals. Together we represent how much stronger we are when we celebrate all of what we are.”
The Parade’s Celebrity Grand Marshal will be Ryan O’Connell from Netflix’s offbeat comedy series “Special” will be.
LA Pride Parade route
The LA Pride Parade will start at 11 a.m. June 9 at Crescent Heights Boulevard and march west on Santa Monica Boulevard, ending at Robertson Boulevard.
KABC 7 will broadcast live from the parade from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.. Ellen Leyva, Brandi Hitt, and Raven-Symoné (“Raven’s Home”), who identifies as bisexual, will host the the two-hour show will feature.
On the Red Carpet correspondent Karl Schmid, who identifies as gay and went public last year as HIV positive, also will broadcast from from the parade route.
LA Pride Festival
The LA Pride Festival will take place from noon to 1 a.m. June 8 and from noon to 11 p.m. June 9 and be located in West Hollywood Park on San Vicente Boulevard between Santa Monica Boulevard and Melrose Avenue.
Advance tickets each day are $30 plus $4.75 in service fees.
Paula Abdul will perform a free concert in West Hollywood Park at the Festival’s opening ceremonies June 7. The concert will take place from 10:30 to 11:30 p.m.
Also, Pride on the Boulevard, a free, three-day festival along Santa Monica Boulevard, will feature vendors, non-profit organizations, and a local artist showcase.
Phill Wilson
The Los Angeles LGBT Center, the world’s largest LGBTQ center, opened in 1969. Last month, the Center opened its new $142 million Anita May Rosenstein Campus.
Wilson, a long-time Los Angeles-area resident, began his activism after he and his partner were diagnosed with AIDS in the early 1980s. Since moving to the City of Angels, Wilson has served as the director of policy and planning for the AIDS Project, Los Angeles’ AIDS coordinator, co-chair of the Los Angeles HIV Health Commission, and a member of the HRSA AIDS Advisory Committee.
Wilson founded the Black AIDS Institute in 1999 and was appointed to President Barack Obama’s Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS.
