Long Beach Pride Festival Canceled With 30 Minutes to Go

The Long Beach Pride Festival was canceled Friday, hours before its first events were set to begin, after the City of Long Beach said organizers hadn’t submitted required safety documentation. The Pride Parade is still on for Sunday. As of Saturday morning nothing had changed. See their statement here. The Parade WILL still go on — it begins at 10a Sunday. 

City officials said they’d made the decision Thursday. Pride hadn’t provided plans needed to inspect the stage, electrical systems, tent structure, and emergency exits at Marina Green Park, where concerts were scheduled from noon to 10 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Two-day tickets had been selling for $75.

“The City did not receive the required documentation needed to complete safety reviews, inspect critical event infrastructure, such as the stage, electrical systems and tent, and emergency exiting plans to ensure compliance with public safety standards,” the city said in a statement.

The announcement came at roughly 4:30 p.m. Friday, about 30 minutes before the festival’s first scheduled events.

City spokesperson Laath Martin said staff had left open the possibility of a shortened event if Pride submitted the documents in time. It didn’t, he said.

Long Beach Pride is a volunteer-run nonprofit that’s produced the festival for more than four decades. More than forty years. Its president, Tonya Martin, said all paperwork had been submitted on time.

“Long Beach Pride is deeply disappointed by the City’s decision to cancel the Long Beach Pride Festival, a long-standing community institution built by volunteers, sustained by love, and rooted in the belief that every person deserves to live openly, safely, and with dignity,” Martin said in a statement.

The city said it had requested the missing documentation “multiple times over the past several months and again recently,” according to an email to Pride reviewed by the Long Beach Post. Plans that were submitted weren’t adequate, the email said.

The festival hadn’t been an easy sell heading into the weekend. Pride reportedly struggled with ticket revenue, and the event had trouble signing vendors as well, City Councilmember Cindy Allen said.

“I join our community members who feel deeply disappointed about this situation. I support the queer community and want to see this festival thrive,” Allen said.

Martin said the timing couldn’t be worse. “At a time when our community is being targeted and made vulnerable, Long Beach should be doing more to protect and uplift us, not taking away one of the most visible and meaningful expressions of inclusion our city has,” she said.

“Canceling Pride sends the wrong message,” Martin said. “It tells LGBTQ+ residents, workers, students, small business owners, artists, families, visitors, and allies that their safety, visibility, and celebration are negotiable. It undermines decades of volunteer work and community trust. And it weakens the very values Long Beach claims to champion.”

Martin called directly on the city’s top officials. “We call on our Mayor Rex Richardson and the city council members to make the Pride Festival happen,” she said.

The city said it’s highlighting alternative Pride events still happening throughout the weekend.

Again, the Pride Parade on Sunday features 141 entries, the most in the event’s history, the city said. It begins at 10 a.m. at Ocean Boulevard and Lindero Avenue.

Editors note: Finally, I just have to say this — as the head of programming for CHANNEL Q, I worked closely with the LB Pride team for many years. Many of the volunteers have been serving the organization for decades. They have always been professional, on point and buttoned up. I find it hard to believe they would get down to the wire and risk so much over paperwork. They’re not new, this isn’t their first time at the rodeo. There’s more to this than meets the eye. We’ll work to bring you more details once we have them.