Charlotte Pride Announces COVID Cancellation Of Parade, Festival

CHARLOTTE, NC —Charlotte Pride announced Monday that the Oct. 24 Pride Parade had been canceled, and that other large-scale, in-person events scheduled for the fall would be conducted as smaller, hybrid (virtual/in-person) events due to substantial community spread of COVID-19.

In August, the organization postponed its summer events until the fall, hoping that higher vaccination rates would lead to decreased community spread of COVID. The festival and parade also had been canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic.

But on Monday, Daniel Valdez, president of Charlotte Pride, and Clark Simon, vice president of Charlotte Pride, appeared in a video explaining why the decision was made to scale-back this fall's events.

"We were so sad that we could not gather in 2020 for our traditional festival and parade, and we had high, high hopes that we could make some kind of large, in-person celebration happen for our community this year," Simon said. "In the last four weeks, though, we've been paying very close attention to the data. It hasn't looked good."

Said Valdez: "The reality of the pandemic means we must take serious precautions to safeguard the health and well-being of our valuable and vulnerable community."

Among the new, hybrid virtual/in-person events are:

• Charlotte Pride Pop-Up Shops, Oct. 16, Select locations citywide
• Charlotte Pride Scavenger Hunt, Oct. 16-24, Plaza Midwood
• Charlotte Pride Drag Pageant, Oct. 22, Watch parties hosted throughout the city
• Mask-Queerade Bar Crawl, Oct. 23, South End, various locations
• The Charlotte Pridestream, Oct. 23, iHeartRadio Charlotte Studios and watch parties citywide
• Charlotte Pride Interfaith Service, Oct. 24, Broadcast live from St. John's Baptist Church
• Reel Out Charlotte LGBTQ Film Festival, Nov. 5-6, Camp North End/ Virtual

All event details, livestream links, in-person event and watch party locations and more will be announced on the Charlotte Pride website.