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.
Just because your heart is in the right place, you are not excused from following the same protocols and strictures that other events held in the city must adhere to.
You can wax poetic about love, togetherness, equality, rainbows and unicorns but if your organization has systemic and historical compliance problems, eventually there will be consequences.
This is on the Long Beach Pride board of directors. No one else. The City didn’t want to cancel it. The loss of tax revenue, community goodwill, and other headaches that come from cancelling are many of the reasons why the city wouldn’t cancel this unless they had to do so. This board has had similar paperwork issues in the past. It’s very unfortunate but someone needs to look hard at the board composition and make some changes, along with operational changes.
I am surprised Long Beach Pride was not able to fulfill its paperwork responsibilities to the city as required. They have been around for many years and should have been able to submit the needed paperwork before the deadline. After reading several articles on this maelstrom, I think there could be more behind the scenes that we are not aware of. I hope the press will be able to get to the bottom of this situation. Several years ago, there was a festival called Sunset Junction that was held yearly in the Silver Lake district. The festival was well received… Read more »
This is the fault of the Long Beach Pride organization, not the City. The details coming out are pretty clear on that. There is no benefit to the City to cancel, unless it had to do so. There are several stories about how the organization struggled with paperwork in past years too. This was just the culmination of a poorly run organization that has lost millions of dollars over the last few years. It needs to find new leadership ASAP.
This has MAGA political manipulation all over it. RISE UP!
This has NOTHING to do with MAGA. Long Beach is a welcoming city for the LGBTQ community, including on the city council and in city government. The Pride Board has a history of permit issues and other problems in getting Pride ready. This is just the worst result of their problems.
Yes, Donald Trump cancelled LB Pride.
Still waiting on those interment camps though.
The crazy thing is Trump supported gay marriage decades before Obama did.
And then trump flip flopped and has backed so many laws, policies, and candidates who have been detrimental to the LGBTQ+ community. And your reference to his support of gay marriage is pretty laughable. He barely supported gay marriage and not in any official stance. Just random, half-hearted comments. By 2015, he was clear that he did not support it.
Lame
I was saddened to hear this. I can’t even imagine the financial implications and lawsuits that will most likely flow from this outcome. I have fond memories of attending LB Pride in decades past. I know you, Brian, question the City’s safety justification for not allowing the Festival to proceed. I am less skeptical- I don’t see what other motivation the City could have for not permitting an event that regularly brings welcome dollars and eyeballs to Long Beach, unless you think it’s a ploy to mount their own future festival like West Hollywood. I look at the organizers’ public… Read more »
lawyers must be having a field day in these political times
You are correct, as far as I can tell. I’ve heard from at least one credible source that the board has done things like this in the past and that the city had no choice, even though it didn’t want to cancel it.