Victoria Pride Society names new President and first Executive Director…

Victoria Pride Festival returns to in-person events from June 23 to July 2…

Pride parade and festival vendor registrations are now open…

 

Victoria, BC – March 30, 2022 – After two-years of virtual celebrations due to COVID-19, Victoria Pride Society (VPS) is thrilled to announce that Pride is back with a return to in-person events. The Victoria Pride Festival 2022 will take place from June 23 to July 2, with the much-anticipated Victoria Pride Parade hitting the streets on Sunday, June 26. Parade and festival vendor applications are now open on the VPS website. These applications will undergo a new vetting process that shines a light on diversity, equity and inclusion to ensure that members of the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities are the focus of Pride.

Festival vendors and parade registrants will note a new application form when applying to participate in Pride. The changes include weighing each applicants social impact to bring about diversity, equity and inclusion and developing programs that support 2SLGBTQIA+ and intersecting communities in both the short and long term.

One of Victoria’s largest parades, the annual Pride Parade being held on June 26 will also feature a new route that takes marchers east over the Johnston Street Bridge then south onto Wharf Street before turning onto Government, Belleville and Menzies Streets. The colourful march will envelop the downtown Inner Harbour in the most vibrant display of Pride on Vancouver Island.

Since the last live Pride Festival in 2019, the VPS has undergone changes, electing nine new board members, naming a new President and hiring the organization’s first Executive Director. Under this new leadership team, the society is poised to build on the successes of past leaders in supporting year-round programming and projects to advance meaningful connections across the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities.

Long-time Victoria resident Britton Kohn (they/she) has been a Pride volunteer since 2011 and served as a director on the board for six years before becoming the society’s new President. “I’m excited to collaborate with both an invigorated board of directors and our first ever Executive Director to ensure 2SLGBTQIA+ communities are the focus of our parade and festival, especially after two years of living in isolation.” They add, “Together, we will continue to do the work to produce Pride so that all folks feel included; we are already looking forward to more volunteers getting involved.”

New Executive Director Deirdre Rowland (she/her), a social impact communications strategist for grass roots initiatives says, “I’m excited to take on this role to be a catalyst for growth and change within the organization.” She adds, “We hope to expand our organizational capacity and in this new leadership role I hope to enable the Pride Society to become more sustainable and be better equipped to support inclusivity for all.”

 

About the Victoria Pride Festival 2022:

Established in 2005, the Victoria Pride Society is dedicated to the pursuit of a fair and just world for 2SLGBTQIA+ communities and is proud to celebrate Pride with a ten-day Pride Festival that emphasizes inclusion, diversity and equity. VPS creates opportunities for visibility, collaboration, ongoing conversations and celebration. With a new leadership team, VPS is working to create programming, projects and events that advance meaningful connections across the 2SLGBTQIA+ communities in Greater Victoria.

Pride has taken many forms in Victoria over the years starting with the first “Pride Weeks” in the early 1980s and community picnics in Beacon Hill Park in the early 1990s. The first Pride Parade was in 1994 and the first Pride Festival in the Park took place in 1995. The local Pride movement continues to grow with no sign of slowing down, a great deal of this continuity is thanks to the immense efforts of past Pride President David Tillson, who was in the role until 2021.

The Victoria Pride Society acknowledges that it organizes and works on the traditional territories of the Lekwungen peoples, and that the land’s historical relationships with the Songhees, Esquimalt and W̱SÁNEĆ peoples have existed since time immemorial. Further to this acknowledgement, the Victoria Pride Society affirms that colonialism, and the attitudes and practices that have accompanied it, contributes to systemic discrimination and violence against Indigenous Peoples.

 

Media Contact:

Deirdre Rowland

Executive Director, Victoria Pride Society

M: 778-888-9974

E: ed@victoriapridesociety.org