BY MATT KITE for WEEKLY VOLCANO | 7/17/2026
It was the biggest yet. And for many on hand, it was also the most fun to date. According to organizers, approximately 35,000 people flocked to Wright Park for the Tacoma Pride Festival last Saturday.
“It’s crazy and amazing at the same time,” Lavinda Lyfe said of the turnout while waiting backstage to announce the next entertainer.
Lyfe, one of Tacoma’s most beloved drag queens, volunteered at last year’s festival with Oasis Youth Center, a local queer nonprofit group. This time around, she saw the event from a new perspective: as a host on the main stage.
When asked what inspired her to participate in this year’s festivities, she didn’t have to deliberate long.
“Because I love Tacoma,” she said. “I love the queer community. We have so many people out here who don’t know how much of a community there actually is, and I just need them to see that it’s here and that all of these different services are available for them, that they have all these different places that they can go and be supported and be accepted for who they are and how they are.”
Lyfe’s words were perfectly in sync with this year’s theme.
“So this year the theme is ‘you are loved,’” said Joanne Levy, executive director at Rainbow Center, the festival’s organizer. “We felt like society has been telling us how much we’re hated, how much we’re not wanted, and so the big theme and the best thing we thought we could do is ‘you are loved.’ And then the other theme is ‘pride in action.’ We need people to stand up and show up right now.”
Tacoma got the message.
Before the festival began, more than 260 vendors set up booths to prepare for the masses. Food trucks vied for space with art displays, makeshift bookstores, and booths selling everything from colorful flags to folding handheld fans. Meanwhile, churches, credit unions, colleges, unions, civic groups, county and city departments, and a whole host of other organizations erected booths to distribute information or court potential customers.
Then the people began arriving. Some wore short shorts with pup masks. Others, garbed in gothic or Victorian dresses, carried dainty parasols. Still others brought their pets, including at least one bunny rabbit. Rainbows adorned everything: shirts, pants, dresses, hats, capes, and wings, among other clothing items and accessories. A playful group of furries, revelers dressed in elaborate homemade costumes, gathered for a group photo and then dispersed into the growing crowd.
But not everyone sported blue hair or came dressed in sequins or gold lamé. Beneath Wright Park’s grand old shade trees, wild met ordinary and scandalous shared an umbrella with conventional. Families, children, senior citizens, teenagers, singles, groups, and, yes, plenty of cishet festivalgoers mingled without fuss or fanfare.
A sense of support for and celebration of the queer community was palpable. It appeared at booths where mothers and fathers offered free hugs to passersby. And it hung in the cloud of dust that hovered over the park’s hard-packed dirt paths as the crowds thickened and festivalgoers walked shoulder to shoulder and took in the sights.
It was a fashion show, a classic street fair, and an art festival all rolled into one, and everyone took turns switching between participant and observer.
Levy, while describing the role the festival plays in Rainbow Center’s year-round advocacy, described it as a beacon. The festival’s joyful outpouring lights the way for Tacoma so the city can tackle ongoing challenges and much-needed initiatives that require steady leadership and community involvement.
“We do programs for housing, direct aid, mutual aid, sexual health,” she said. “We have community hours. And it’s a huge amount of work for a very small staff. The Tacoma Pride Festival lifts all the organizations around it. The Hob Nob says it’s the most lucrative day of the year. Other organizations say Tacoma Pride Festival helps them grow from around thirty percent.”
When asked why the festival isn’t held in June, during what is typically considered Pride Month in the U.S., Levy offered a two-part answer.
“The fun answer is Tacoma gets to be gay for two months,” she said. “The reason is because we didn’t want to be competitive with Seattle. We wanted to be complementary. So Seattle does Pride in June, and we do all of our Pride events in July. And the reason for that is we want to make as much space for queer organizations as possible.”
Speakers at this year’s festival included Pierce County Executive Ryan Mello and Washington state Rep. Laurie Jinkins. Entertainers ranged from a Cambodian classical and folk dance ensemble to the Kim Archer Band.
By every measure, the festival was as sunny and radiant as the mild July weather. When asked how she would measure the day’s success, Levy pointed to the evidence all around her: the number of vendors, the size of the crowd, and the amount raised for numerous organizations. Then she pointed to less quantifiable variables.
“Are people having fun?” she asked. “Are they happy?”
