Gay Pridefest; Springfield, IL

Completely by accident I happened on Gay PrideFest while visiting Springfield, IL. I was looking for parking in order to visit Abraham Lincoln’s home, when I saw a massive street fair type thing happening down the street that led directly to the front steps of the capitol building. After I parked, I passed a girl who seemed to be coming from there and asked her “what’s going on over there?”, “Pridefest” she answered…

The event basically consisted of a series of booths lining two city blocks of the street, including about a half block to either side of the cross street in the center. There was also a bandstand featuring live performances at the far end, closest to the capitol building, with most of the food and beverage sales happening towards that end (near the music)

The PrideFest Central booth (information about the event, distribution of wristbands which allowed you to buy alcoholic beverages from venders, etc.) was located right at the crossroads point in the center of the event…

About half the booths were political in nature, some of them were selling items to raise money, some collecting names on petitions, others just informational 

While most of the booths were selling rainbow (Gay pride) themed type goods that would be attractive to members of the LGBT community

Of course the sales booth that caught my eye was selling bumper stickers….I’d like to say that I can never have too many bumper stickers but I’m running out of room on the back of my car… am beginning to dreaming longingly of purchasing a plumber’s type van in part because more room for both stuff and bumper stickers

I will say this is not my first Pride event by a long shot, and compared to most of the ones I’ve been to this one was a pretty small and laid back event. In fact I only found one guy who REALLY embraced his gay during the event.

But, to be fair, most of the pride events I have been to were in Cities with MASSIVE out of the closet LGBT populations, and hence a significantly higher level of perceived safety to be OUT.

For instance, I lived in the San Francisco Bay area for years and in addition to the LGBT pride parade have attended some really out-there pride events. For instance, while the Folsom Street Fair is more about BDSM and Fetish than it is about LGBT — although there’s a LOT of overlap, as both are Sexuality and gender identity-based cultures,  this particular pride fair is most definitely NOT for the squeamish (and in fact is one of the few things that pushes even my boundaries). That said it’s a HUGE event; Folsom takes up 13 city blocks and draws between 250,000 and 400,000 people every year depending on weather, etc (and the crush is such, that it is can trigger Agoraphobia, even for people who are normally just fine with crowds). That, and just a two months ago, when I was in Australia, I attended the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras with some friends of mine.