The DMV Offers An Abundance of Pride Through June
From a Wolf Trap music festival to Prides in Baltimore, Norfolk, and Arlington, the area isn't quite yet done with Pride.
Pride isn’t just a one-weekend outing anymore. While Capital Pride 2023 wraps up this Sunday evening, June 11, there are still plenty of pride-themed events and excursions lasting throughout the remainder of Pride month in and around D.C. — and beyond.
One week after Capital Pride, residents will have competing pride-themed attractions to consider. For those who would prefer to stay within D.C. proper, there’s the Pride Bar Crawl DC (www.crawlwith.us/washingtondc/pride), a 6th annual self-guided bar-hop to five centrally located, primarily non-LGBTQ venues, organized by Crawl With Us, which pledges that 20 percent of this year’s event proceeds will go to the Capital Pride Alliance.
From 4 to 10 p.m. on Saturday, June 17, bar crawlers will enjoy exclusive drink specials, plus one or two complimentary drinks, and select food specials as they go, at their own pace and in whatever order they choose among participating venues including Chinatown’s Howl at the Moon and Tom’s Watch Bar-Capital One, Dupont Circle’s Ghost Dupont Diner and Phantom Lounge, plus a fifth venue TBA. Those crawlers still standing at 10 p.m. can indulge in a two-hour after-party at Phantom Lounge.
For queer pop fans of a certain, younger age, next weekend ushers in the first of two pride-themed music festivals taking place in June in the outer Virginia suburbs. On Saturday, June 17, Jiffy Lube Live (7800 Cellar Door Dr., Bristow, www.livenation.com) will host Say It Out Loud 2023, a multi-artist concert presented by Live Nation and featuring Kehlani, Syd, UMI, and Destin Conrad.
A week later, Wolf Trap (1551 Trap Rd., Vienna, www.wolftrap.org) will present a two-day Out & About Festival. The festival, of which Metro Weekly is a sponsor, is headlined both nights by Brandi Carlile, who will be joined by other LGBTQ artists and allies performing across Wolf Trap’s three outdoor stages, with Rufus Wainwright, Yola, Jake Wesley Rogers, and Bad Moves on Saturday, June 24, and Lucius, Celisse, Brandy Clark, and Oh He Dead on Sunday, June 25.
The commonwealth will also serve as host to at least two upcoming gatherings collectively representing a diverse LGBTQ community. One such gathering is the second annual Arlington Pride Festival on Saturday, June 24. Organized by Arlington Pride (www.arlvapride.com) in conjunction with the event firm Polished Kreative, the festival, bearing the theme “Moving Forward Together,” will be a buzz of activity, all taking place in the Rosslyn Gateway Park (1300 Lee Hwy.), with a main stage for live entertainment, multiple sections for vendors and photo booths, a showcase area featuring the work of local artists, even a “pet entertainment area sponsored by Puppy Luv Pet Services.”
Arlington’s festival will actually be bookended by two inaugural drag events, the Miss Arlington Drag Pageant hosted by D.C.’s Shi-Queeta Lee at the Hyatt Regency Crystal City on Friday, June 23, and the Arlington Pride Drag Brunch on Sunday, June 25, hosted by Evita Peroxide and featuring a cast of performers at the Alamo Drafthouse Crystal City & Departures Bar (1660 Crystal Dr., www.drafthouse.com).
Farther afield, Hampton Roads Pride (www.hamptonroadspride.org) will mark Pride the last weekend in June, specifically by offering a string of events, all set to take place in the southeastern part of the commonwealth. Working around the theme of “BreakFree 23,” the festivities include the 10th Annual “Studio 54” Block Party with performances by local drag queens and local and regional DJs on Friday, June 23, at The Norva (317 Monticello Ave., Norfolk).
It’s followed on Saturday, June 24, by the 35th Annual PrideFest in Norfolk’s Town Point Park, where local vendors and organizations will engage with attendees also attracted by a Family Zone play area and what is touted as “the country’s only pride boat parade.” Performers include pop trumpet player Spencer Ludwig and Mo Heart of RuPaul’s Drag Race fame. The next day, Sunday, June 25, brings the 3rd Annual Pride at the Beach, a free, family-friendly afternoon outing taking place in 24th Street Stage Park along the Virginia Beach Oceanfront.
The remainder of Pride month offers at least three opportunities to toast the LGBTQ community and cause in Montgomery County. One such pride-related event in Maryland’s most populous county will take place in Glen Echo Park, nestled along the Potomac River several miles northwest of D.C. Well over a century after its founding as a small amusement park, today’s Glen Echo Park (7300 MacArthur Blvd., www.glenechopark.org) is a National Park Service-operated facility serving as an architecturally amusing arts retreat, artist preserve, and special event rental destination.
Saturday, June 17, ushers in the third annual Glen Echo Park Family Day, a kid-focused mix of activities including hands-on arts & crafts projects, rides on the antique Dentzel carousel, and a Family Dance Party with Rainbow Desserts, in addition to access to the park’s playground, picnic area, and on-site art galleries.
The following weekend brings two additional Montgomery County pride events. First up, the afternoon of Saturday, June 24, brings a celebration in the county seat. The 7th Annual Rockville Pride Day (www.rockvillemd.gov) will feature live performances, information booths, and arts and crafts, all set up in the Rockville Town Square (131 Gibbs Street).
Silver Spring follows suit the next day, Sunday, June 25, with Pride in the Plaza Festival (www.mocopridecenter.org). Expect a showcase of local performers and entertainers, queer-owned businesses, helpful resources for the community, and health/STI screenings, all from Veterans Plaza in downtown Silver Spring.
In fact, the last weekend of June is positively overflowing with Pride celebrations in Maryland, going well beyond suburban Washington. Saturday, June 24, is the big prideful day in the county seat of Frederick County, the historically important American crossroads in the northern part of the state — a city that is Maryland’s second-largest in population, behind Baltimore.
Frederick Pride (www.thefrederickcenter.org) is an all-day festival set up in Carroll Creek Linear Park, just to the south of thriving historic downtown Frederick. This year’s event carries a special anniversary theme, “10 Years of Fabulous!,” and is expected to draw upwards of 30,000 attendees. The festival will feature hundreds of local business and nonprofit vendors of all stripes, as well as scheduled performances by local music acts, food and drink merchants, and a youth pride area.
The Eastern Shore region of Maryland will also celebrate its LGBTQ residents and community on Saturday, June 24, with the Salisbury Pride Parade and Festival (www.salisburyprideparade.com). An all-afternoon affair organized by Salisbury PFLAG, the festivities include various entertainers, exhibitors, and vendors, with drag act Magnolia Applebottom as headliner and grand marshal.
And then there’s Baltimore Pride (www.baltimorepride.org). Visitors to Charm City this month will have more than the typical reasons to reflect on the past as well as rejoice in the present and future. One additional cause for reflection and remembrance is the display of two sections of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at the Reid Chapel in Mount Vernon’s First & Franklin Presbyterian Church (210 W. Madison St., www.firstfranklin.org). Free viewings are at select times on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays through June 28.
Baltimore’s LGBTQ community certainly has more reason than usual to rejoice this Pride, given the imminent reopening of the Pride Center of Maryland, the entity that produces Baltimore Pride. Moving to a four-story, 7,000-square-foot facility located in the Charles Village neighborhood, a little over a mile north of its former, smaller digs in Mount Vernon, sets the center up with more office space and the room to significantly expand its programming and services.
Baltimore will welcome approximately 100,000 Pride revelers the last weekend in June with a series of signature events, all organized around this year’s theme “One Heart, One Love, One Pride.” The festivities kick off on Friday, June 23, with the “Ridin’ the Rail” event at the B&O Railroad Museum (901 W. Pratt St., ), located on the grounds of a historic railway station and adjacent roundhouse. A Pride Train Ride, traveling along “the first mile of track ever laid in the United States,” is one major element of the Baltimore Pride Party hosted by the museum, in addition to performances by local drag queens, as well as food and drink to be enjoyed al fresco and surrounded by locomotives.
The festivities on Saturday, June 24, start off on a high, with the commencement at high noon of the , a two-block run down Charles Street starting at 25th Street in Charles Village. It’s followed by the Baltimore Pride Parade stepping off at 1 p.m. at 33rd and N. Charles Streets and continuing 10 blocks down Charles before leading into the 48th Annual Block Party, set up in a blocked-off stretch of Charles Street between 23rd Street and North Avenue. Remy Ma, the Grammy-nominated Bronx-native rapper more recently known for starring on VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: New York, will headline this year’s festivities along with fellow Love & Hip Hop alum K. Michelle, a soul singer-songwriter from Memphis, who actually came to fame as a regular cast member on VH1’s Love & Hip Hop: Atlanta.
The inaugural Baltimore Pride 5K Run or Walk, co-presented by Blue Cheetah Sports Timing, launches a full day of activities in Druid Hill Park at 9 a.m. on Sunday, June 25, with Pride in the Park following starting at noon until and lasting until 6 p.m. The Sunday festival offers a variety of community and commercial vendors as well as food and drink purveyors, sports and leisure activities, socializing, plus live music and drag entertainment.
Once Pridegoers in Baltimore have come and gone from Druid Park, you could call Pride 2023, for all intents and purposes, good and done, hon’.
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