Dear Community Members, 

Normally, during this time of year I am frantically organizing, revising, and finalizing plans for the Indy Pride Festival and Parade as well as numerous other Pride Month events. A few months ago, the team and I were anxious to announce the headliners, events, and surprises we had in store for you. Unfortunately, as you can imagine, all those plans have been derailed. 

Now, we find ourselves in an entirely different world. We are all painfully aware of our current situation with the pandemic, public health guidelines, and everything we know from the 24 hour news cycle and the million messages received from every other business and organization – simply put, our 2020 Pride Month events are going to be drastically different. 

The Indy Pride Board of Directors has made the decision to modify the Indy Pride Festival and our traditional live Pride Month events out of concern for the health and safety of attendees, volunteers and staff. Don’t worry though, we are doing everything we can to ensure that Pride Month remains a time for us all to be visible, to feel embraced and to celebrate and connect with other incredible community members!

The difficult decision has been made that there will not be an Indy Pride Parade nor an in-person Indy Pride Festival in 2020. In the coming weeks, Indy Pride will announce details of a Virtual Indy Pride Celebration on Saturday, June 20th from 2pm to 10pm. We are working hard to build engaging digital programming through live-streamed channels that everyone will be able to enjoy from the safety and comfort of their own homes. Just because we need to be physically apart doesn’t mean we can’t connect with one another!

Other traditional Pride Month events are under discussion for alternative planning, and details will be released on our website here and our social media channels as they become available. 

As we pivot to more virtual events to bring us all together, our hope is that our audience across the city and the state will be excited to participate in these events as a show of solidarity, optimism and, of course, Pride in our LGBTQ+ community. 

Indy Pride’s Board of Directors and Staff have engaged in hours of discussion alongside community stakeholders to make what we feel are the best decisions for the organization’s responsibility to you, the community we serve. We understand that these decisions may be difficult for some to accept. Some may openly disagree and others may outwardly mourn the loss of our traditions during Pride Month in Indy in 2020. Our goal is to continue to remain as transparent and timely as possible in our decisions, to provide updates as frequently as we can to you, and to find creative ways to safely engage and celebrate you, our Indy Pride family. 

This pandemic has uniquely hit our community – from a health perspective as well as a financial perspective. But we have come together to support each other as we always do through grassroots food pantries, housing programs, financial assistance, mental health support and advocacy – and that is truly what LGBTQ+ Pride is about. 

Pride is not just one month out of the year or a line-up of events – Pride in our community is a living, breathing thing that is most palpable during times of crisis and in times of triumph – times where we have historically only had each other to lean on. I hope that all of us continue to support one another and to stay as healthy as possible as we look to the future. 

I look forward to seeing you all come out in force at these modified events and show that our LGBTQ+ Pride is something that draws more strength and momentum in the face of adversity and gives us all the more reason to celebrate our history and our future. 

Yours in Pride,
Chris Handberg 
Executive Director
Indy Pride, Inc.
[email protected]
Pronouns: He/Him/His