BY DOUG MACKEY

Tacoma Pride, the beloved annual festival celebrating the local LGBTQIA+ community, had a banner year in 2019—remembered by many as truly exceptional. This fact was not lost on the those presently at the helm of the Rainbow Center. For this year’s event, the organization that created the festival has sought out the person who was largely responsible for that year’s success: Athena Hitson.

Hitson and business partner Linda Danforth’s two-year-old company, Assemble Strategic Partners—which helps nonprofits fundraise and plan strategies—took the Rainbow Center on as a client just this February. A month later, when it was noted that 2019’s festival had been such a success and that Hitson had been at the helm, she was once again installed as the event’s producer. But time was in short supply.

 “Usually, I start planning this in November—seeking sponsorship and figuring out how we are going to fund it. We started immediately… in March. That’s a really short window to fundraise. I mean, it’s 150,000 dollars!” she exclaims with a laugh. “But once we hit the ground running, people started coming out of the woodwork. Everyone in Tacoma was like ‘We need to be involved.’ So it’s not as much of as struggle bus to get people involved, and the support is actually pretty amazing. Not without a lot of work—let me tell you! But Linda and I know who to talk to.”

Hitson, who produced Pride the five years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic, would be the first to defer the credit to the team she’d put together in 2019—and this year is no different. Hitson, Danforth, and their team of eight core people are hard at work, with crucial help from the Rainbow Center’s interim director, Mary Ebersol. “She’s phenomenal,” Hinton gushes. “She’s been a key component of how this is coming together.”

She wants to be clear that Tacoma Pride Festival is not out to make money. “It’s a program. And the program was developed out of this space where ‘We celebrate, we need to educate’—and that’s a continual thing within the LGBTQ community.”

The program was started roughly 30 years ago by a couple friends, says Hinton, and was originally called Out in the Park. In the 2000s, Michelle Douglas came on as executive director. In 2011, Hitson and Douglas met, and a productive partnership was born. Before long, Lisa Fruichantie joined up, and soon after, the Out in the Park festival was absorbed by Tacoma Pride, becoming an official program of the Rainbow Center and the Tacoma Pride Festival we know today. “The event is a program of Rainbow Center,” Hitson again clarifies. “This identification is key to funding, because funders want to fund educational pieces—they want to fund the community. And it’s a ‘heritage piece’, which means it’s cultural. There’s a community that is in this space that needs to be identified and recognized as LGBTQ, like other communities.”

Being a program of Rainbow Center, Hitson adds, “It needs to be engaging. We’re not just going to sell sunglasses and jewelry and give people pamphlets. So, in our submission form for vendors, it was like ‘What are you going to bring to engage with the public?’ People who come, we want them to have an enriching experience.”  So, people can expect booths with face painting, spin-the-wheel, contests, and games of all sorts. “All different kinds of engaging activities,” Hitson says. “KNKX is bringing cornhole! But I don’t expect a lot of vendors talking about their businesses.”

Whereas the Tacoma Pride Festival is a “daytime thing, running from noon to 6, The Mix does their own thing,” Hitson says. The downtown Tacoma LGBTQ+ bar will host an annual (ticketed) block party running 4 p.m. to midnight. “They’ve blossomed into a showcase at the end of the evening,” she explains, “which is awesome! They’re adult, and we’re family-friendly. We wanted to be different from Seattle Pride or Olympia Pride; we want to be engaging with families and children, so it’s not just adult-focused. But, you know, we’re trying to have a beer garden!” (The beer garden is yet to be confirmed.)

As for the mainstage entertainment, Hitson is clearly excited. “I’ve been in the event industry for fifteen years and have worked with some amazing artists and musicians. We have a talent booker and want to focus on LGBTQ performers.” Mykki Blanco, who has collaborated with Kanye West and Blood Orange, will be the main headliner. Enthused as she is, Athena points out that folks can still get involved. “We really need volunteers. We have about two-thirds of what we need.”

As for the future, “We’re definitely looking for parade options. But that’s a beast in itself! It comes with its own challenges.” She has some heady support for the idea, though. “The mayor really wants a parade. She asked me the other day, ‘Can we have a parade?!’ I was like ‘You get me money and a committee, and I’m sure we can make something happen!’” One thing about the immediate future is certain, however. “They’ve already asked me to do next year, as well as the Gayla in November.”

Rest assured that next year’s Pride will be everything 2024’s is—and more. Athena’s got this.