(Photo via Space Coast Pride’s Facebook)
MELBOURNE, Fla. | Space Coast Pride will celebrate its 20th anniversary on Sept. 26 at its new home in the Melbourne Auditorium.
Fresh off the most recent season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All Stars,” Shuga Cain will be headlining the festival.
Tina Jensen, president of Space Coast Pride, first joined the board in 2020 and says the growth in attendees has been incredible to see. She says the way the community shows up for each other is beautiful.
She got emotional when thinking of the perseverance in the LGBTQ+ community because Space Coast Pride is hosted in Brevard County, which can be typically conservative.
“We put a call to our community saying we need help closing this funding gap and I just posted on social media the update and we raised almost $20,000 to fill that gap to ensure that we can keep running year-round,” she shares. “That’s thanks to everyday people; we got a few more sponsorship pledges, but really, it’s individual donations, people signing up to be a vendor or a parade participant, and it’s really great to see. It warms my heart beyond belief.”
The entertainment will also be held in Melbourne Auditorium, which will allow guests to get away from the heat and find seating indoors. Outside the auditorium, there will be vendors and food trucks, along with an LED screen to watch the entertainment going on inside.
“This is the 1st year at the Melbourne auditorium, so it’s going to be new for us, new for everybody,” Jensen shares. “But what’s really cool about it is we’ll have the indoor space and the auditorium. We will have extra security measures for anybody in the auditorium. We also have the outdoor footprint and we’re working really closely with the city, the local police department and our crowd control company that we have hired just to ensure that safety for our guests, vendors, for all of our participants.”
The parade will continue its tradition of stepping off through Downtown Melbourne, beginning at 11 a.m. The festival follows at the Auditorium from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m. Free shuttles will run all day between the parade route, downtown parking lots, and the Auditorium, making it easy for attendees to catch the parade downtown and continue on to the festival grounds without moving their cars. The event is family-friendly and free to attend.
Jensen says they have partnered with Matthews Hope to provide the shuttles. There will be four different stops at the city parking lots for attendees.
Space Coast Pride is actively recruiting volunteers to help with parade staging, festival setup, shuttle coordination, and day-of operations. Anyone interested in volunteering or looking for additional event information can visit the organization’s website.
“I just love that we’re able to continue evolving with the needs of our community and what we’re faced with,” Jensen says. “It’s such hard work getting to this point. We’re all volunteers, and so it is quite the labor of love, but that day, it just makes it all worth it.”
Space Coast Pride will be on Sept. 26 at Melbourne Auditorium at 11 a.m. For more information, visit SpaceCoastPride.org.
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