Utah Pride 2022 is on

Utah Pride Festival organizers announced that the event will return this June with plans for 60,000 attendees.

The two-day festival will take place Saturday, June 4 and Sunday, June 5 on Washington Square - the block of the Salt Lake City and County Building. Organizers say they have expanded the festival area by 20 percent to accommodate more crowd and more vendors.

"Out co-CEOs, along with the board, have agreed it's time to return to normal and put on the biggest Pride Festival and Parade Utah has ever seen," leaders said in a statement. "We will, of course, be keeping an eye on COVID case numbers and taking recommendations from the Utah Department of Health as we move forward. But as of now, the plan is to host the event as we've done pre-pandemic with a few changes and additions this year."

This includes more space with food trucks on 500 South and a Volunteer Village on Library Square. They promise more drink stations, more entrance gates and more exhibitor booths.

Per capita, the Utah Pride Festival is the largest PRIDE celebration in the Western United States.

Tickets will go on sale May 1, with early bird discounts through May 31.

A one-day pass will be $0 for youth and $15 for adults. Multi-day passes will range from $25 to $250, and group bonus packs will be $40 to $300.

SUNDAY, MAY 29 — Drag Queen June with plans for 60,000+ attendees.

Brunch, Retro Sun-Day Dance Party. The two-day festival will take place

MONDAY, MAY 30 — 5K

Saturday June 4 and Sunday June 5 on Family Run Run (free), Memorial Day Pride Picnic (free)

TUESDAY, MAY 31 — LGBTQ+

Film Premier (free), Memorial Day Pride Picnic (Free)

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 1 — Pride Month Flag Raising at City Hall (free), Pride

THURSDAY, JUNE 2 — Pride Interfaith Service (free).

FRIDAY, JUNE 3 — Youth Pride, Pride March (free), Rainbow Glow March (free), Rainbow Glow March Rooftop After Party.

SATURDAY, JUNE 4 — Utah Pride Festival Day 1 from 1–11 p.m.

SUNDAY, JUNE 5 — Utah Pride Festival Day 2 from 11 a.m.–7 p.m.

The PRIDE Week Steering Committee voted unanimously for this year’s theme among nearly 100 submissions from the community: I AM Utah Pride.

John Johnson, who has organized the logistics of 11 Utah Pride festivals was named Operations Director. He feels this theme will allow everyone to determine what PRIDE Week means to them.

“PRIDE means something different for all of us, and that’s the beauty of PRIDE. We want everyone to celebrate PRIDE Week with us and to be able to show their own PRIDE in a way that is authentic to their experience” Johnson said. “Our community is very diverse and we want to allow space for a variety of identities, orientations, faiths, races, ethnicities, and cultures. PRIDE Week is a time to appreciate our differences, and for each of us to celebrate own space in this community.”

Organizers encourage people to share their own stories of pride and use the hashtag #iamutahpride on social media posts so they can be collected a large number that express pride in as many different ways as possible.

The annual Pride March will happen Friday night, June 3, and leaders are calling it a “sunset version” followed by a Rainbow Glow March.

This year’s parade route will be the longest it has ever been — 13 blocks. It will head east along Second South from Second West to Fourth East, then turn south to Seventh South and back west towards the Festival grounds, ending at Second East.

The parade will kick off at 10 a.m. and applications to be part of the parade are live at utahpridecenter.org.

Fees to participate are dependent on a group’s annual budget and are categorized as follows: social groups, schools, governments and politicians, nonprofits (small, medium, large), and other organizations (small medium, large.)

There will be four stages on the Festival grounds, and organizers are searching for 40 local, regional, and national entertainers.

The Festival has made the area for food much larger this year, for a total of 30 vendors, an increase of nearly fifty percent from the last in-person Pride. They are taking applications for vendors now.

A festival of this size takes a lot of volunteers. Those interested can go to bit.ly/pridevolunteer22 to sign up.

More information on the Utah Pride Festival can be found at utahpridecenter.org