What a weekend! We had
incredible attendance at both the Cadillac Barbie Indy Pride Parade
Presented by Delta Faucet Company and the Indy Pride Festival 2019
Presented by Salesforce. Based on ticket sales and internal data, we had nearly
50,000 attendees at this year’s Festival. It was the largest gathering of
LGBTQ+ people and allies in Indiana! I hope you feel as we do at Indy Pride,
humbled and overwhelmed by all of the love we received.
With such a tremendous outpouring of Pride, we faced some
challenges related to growing pains. Logistically, we were not prepared to
double the size of last year’s Festival. Knowing that Lizzo would be a big draw
to those inside and outside our local community, we prepared for around
35,000 people and yet, that was still not enough.
Unfortunately, our attendees experienced unusually long
lines for entry, drinks, restrooms, and food. In fact, our hydration stations,
which were stocked with double the amount of water that was sold last year, ran
out by 2:30p.m. Thankfully, we were able to restock with more pallets of
water a few hours later, but that supply quickly vanished.
Throughout the day, we did our best to adjust for the
increase in attendance, but still there were inconveniences for attendees. For
that, we apologize. Please know that we take all of your comments and
suggestions seriously and they will all be taken into consideration when
planning for our Festival next year.
Even these missteps cannot overshadow how fantastic the
day was! I am so proud of our team of volunteers who planned, led, and
delivered one the best Indy Pride Festivals the city has ever seen. If
you are interested in contributing your time and talents to support our efforts
next year, visit this link and submit your email address so that
we can be in touch!
We hope that you had an amazing day on Saturday and felt the incredible amount of love that we felt! We look forward to continuing to serve the community and provide inclusive spaces where all our community members can come together to celebrate their whole authentic selves.
