Austin Spreads Love at the Annual Pride Parade and Festival

Fiesta Gardens, August 11

Nationally, LGBTQ Pride Month is a time for the remembrance of history and the recognition of progress. Pride Month in Austin culminates with the annual Pride Parade and Festival, organized by the Austin Gay and Lesbian Pride Foundation. Barring any unexpected atmospheric hostility (last year’s event was rain-checked for Hurricane Harvey), the two-part celebration will go down August 11 and last all day. Fiesta Gardens hosts the festival, which features food and performances that last until sundown. Tickets for the event can be found on the Austin Pride website. Afterward, the free-to-attend parade will fill the streets of downtown.

The revelry brings together hundreds of thousands, ushering in a ROYGBIV influx of color to Instagram feeds everywhere. Clothes, hair, cars, and sometimes dogs decorated with the pride flag are expected to abound. But rainbows aside, the festival is in itself both the cause for celebration and the celebration itself. Several city blocks filled with an optimistic and unafraid LGBTQ community is not something that has always been possible. Come to dance, come to shout, but most importantly, come to love.