Long Beach Pride Parade marchers make their way along Ocean Boulevard May 20, 2018. Photo: Thomas R. Cordova
Long Beach Pride 2024 will return to May, the organization announced Wednesday on social media.
Exciting News! We’ve listened to our community, and we’re thrilled to announce that our upcoming 2024 Pride celebration is moving back to the third weekend in May! Join us on May 18-19th for a celebration filled with love, unity, and pride.
A huge thank you to everyone who attended our community town hall and listening session last month. Your voices were heard! ️
Special thanks to the City of Long Beach for their incredible support in making this dream a reality for us.
Let’s come together and make this year’s Long Beach Pride the most memorable one yet!
In late September, Long Beach Pride, and its new board and president, hosted a community town hall meeting at the Bixby Park Community Center to give the public an opportunity to voice concerns or opinions on any topic related to the organization, festival, or parade.
Numerous residents and business owners expressed concerns and frustrations about the festival and parade having been rescheduled to July in 2022 and August this year. The festival still was located along Shoreline Drive in downtown, and the parade took place on Sunday.
Residents wanted the event to return to the weekend before Memorial Day, as it had been held since it started in 1984, excluding 2020 and 2021 when Long Beach Pride was canceled due to COVID-19.
At the meeting, Pride and city officials expressed doubts that the event would take place in May 2024, saying the date was not available, but said May 2025 was a possibility.
It’s unclear what changed in the city in the past month that will make Long Beach Pride 2024 in May a reality.
Pride officials had said that the festival and parade were rescheduled in 2022 to avoid conflicting with WeHo Pride and LA Pride, which take place in June, and San Diego Pride which happens in July.
But those events, except for WeHo Pride, have taken place in June and July more than 30 years. It has never been a problem for people to attend any or all of the Prides.
Long Beach Pride officials said this year’s festival and parade were moved to August for better weather, but that doesn’t make sense since August weather is always hotter than May weather.
Pride and city officials indicated at the September community town hall that the May dates in 2022 and 2023 were lost, but didn’t explain what happened and why they weren’t available.
