Click here to learn more about the full roster of official Houston Pride Weekend events. VIP tickets are available for purchase which includes seating, private restrooms, and snacks. Montrose was once the center of Houston culture and political organization for LGBTQ+ and the home of the Houston Pride Parade. This is Houston's Premiere Event of the Pride Season attended by hundreds of thousands of festival goers each Summer. Based on past attendance, more than 700,000 people are expected to line the streets of Downtown this year, securing its ranking as the second largest parade in Houston and the largest gay pride event in the Southern U.S. The 44th Annual Official Houston Pride LGBT+ Celebration will take place downtown at Houston City Hall, 901 Bagby Street, on Saturday, Jin Houston, TX. The parade typically draws fun-loving people of every sexual persuasion from across Houston and across the country. Whether you identify as gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender or straight, you’ll find plenty of like-minded friends celebrating alongside you the largest LGBT Pride Weekend event. The 2015 Houston Pride Festival attracted 700,000 attendees, which set a new record.Celebrate Houston Gay Pride as the Houston LGBT Pride Parade travels through Downtown with more than 100 floats and entries on Saturday, June 25, 2016.
Steve Ueckert/Houston Chronicle Bob Pine makes his way down Westheimer as a. It is currently the most attended and largest gay pride event in Texas, the Southwest region of the United States, and the second largest Houston-organized event in the city behind Houston Rodeo. A parade down Westheimer and other Montrose streets Sunday highlighted Gay/Lesbian Pride Week in Houston, June 25, 1989. Owing partially to concerns over increasing congestion over the years in the nearby neighborhoods, and to accommodate a larger festival (held in the daytime before the parade itself), the 2015 parade was moved to downtown Houston. Pride Houston and the Houston Police Department reserve the right to check all bags and remove any disruptive attendees. The route of the parade usually had been along Westheimer Road, from Dunlavy Street to Crocker Street.
Until 2015, it took place in Houston's most gay-friendly neighborhood, Montrose. With the event after dark, the various units can be creatively illuminated. The necessary revision in a Houston parade ordinance to allow a nighttime parade was facilitated by then-Houston City Council member Annise Parker.
The highlight of the event is the parade, which has been held in the evening after sunset since 1997. The festivities are held all day on the 4th Saturday of June. This event commemorates the 1969 police raid of the Stonewall Inn on Christopher Street in New York City's Greenwich Village neighborhood, which is generally considered to be the beginning of the modern gay rights movement. The festival takes place in June to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their allies.
After the June 1969 raid of New York gay bar the Stonewall Inn, a series of uprisings began, and sparked the gay liberation movement. The Houston Gay Pride Parade (or often called the Houston Pride Parade) is the major feature of a gay pride festival held annually since 1979. The tensions around who and what belongs at Pride are heightened this year, as the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall riots stands in contrast to the consumer culture that has become synonymous with the season.