I made it! Pride went great. No major issues and the issues we did have were finished by early afternoon. We were packed up and pulling off the square at 10:30. i had to get on the microphone more than I would've wanted to, but that's okay.
3 favorite moments:
My stage manager called me over the walkie-talkies in a panic to the stage. I ran to the stage and she whispered, "I've butt dialed 911!!!!" I was laughing as I jogged to the police officers to let them know.
We had a meter for the fire hydrant to get water. The fire marshal happened to be walking around at that time and helped us get it started. The water came busting through and the hose did the movie thing where it started flailing all around while we were all frantically trying to catch it.
We somehow ended up an HOUR ahead of schedule. AN HOUR at a festival running on queer standard time. I still don't know how it happened. Anyway, I was standing at a barrier, helping a vendor. I heard a drum line playing. Found them, invited them to the Pride stage. They played for about 30 minutes, were totally amazing, the crowd loved them, and it filled up the time before our headliners.
I think I had approximately 500-600 people on the march and I think we had between 3000-3500 attendees. The bands were all amazing, vendors were mostly happy, made some great connections, lots of smiling faces, and a lot of love and healing had. The police officers were so amazing this year, even with the increased presence. We did have one asshole who came to Pride with a sign about the 2nd Amendment deserved to exist and had a gun on his hip. He never did anything, but really: doing that, at Pride, a week after the Orlando shootings, makes you an asshole.
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