Pensacola Pride party will carry on Memorial Day weekend despite cancellations across Florida

Pensacola’s Memorial Day weekend Pride event will carry on as scheduled despite the cancellation of several other pride events throughout Florida, the Pensacola News Journal reports.  

The four-day beach party typically draws crowds of more than 200,000 from across the U.S., according to the Pensacola News Journal, and its long been a Memorial Day weekend destination for many New Orleanians. 

But after the Florida legislature passed and proposed several anti-LGBTQ+ bills in early April, including one law aimed at censoring drag performances and Pride events, a Florida-based civil rights group issued a travel advisory warning the LGBTQ+ community of the risks associated with visiting or moving to Florida. 

“Already, the adopted and proposed policies detailed in the travel advisory have led Florida parents to consider relocating, prospective students to cross Florida colleges and universities off their lists, events and conferences to cancel future gatherings, and the United States military to offer redeployment for service members whose families are now unsafe in the state,” Equity Florida’s advisory reads. 

A string of Pride cancellations followed, with organizers citing the state’s increasingly hostility toward the LGBTQ+ community. Events in Port St. Lucie, Tampa and St. Cloud, among others, will not go on this year as planned. 

Organizers for Pensacola’s Memorial Day weekend Pride event, however, have not been deterred. Tickets for the weekend’s lineup of dance parties are on sale and organizers posted a photo on Instagram Tuesday of the festival’s tents going up on the Park East beach.