This weekend’s Delaware Pride will feature an array of top-notch entertainers coming together to celebrate the 15th incarnation of the event.
The Pride festival will be held from 11:30 a.m.-6 p.m. Sept. 17 at Cape Henlopen State Park in Rehoboth Beach.
Headlining this year’s event is singer Taylor Dane, who will perform hits such as “Tell it to My Heart” during her 45-minute set and will also take part in a meet-and-greet with festival guests. Dane will be joined by emcee Jade Esteban Estrada and singers Kelly King, Pepper Mashay, Jonny McGovern and Calpernia Addams, as well as a cadre of drag entertainers.
“We’re going to have a lot of really great entertainers coming in this year, so we’re really looking forward to the lineup,” said Delaware Pride president Steve Newman.
Festivalgoers can also partake in a number of raffles and drawings and activities like a cupcake-eating contest and cheer on the winners of the Delaware Pride Royal Court Pageant as they take the stage.
About 100 vendors will also be on hand with food, drinks, merchandise and a barrage of information about community resources and initiatives.
Several-thousand people are expected to turn out for the event, and Newman said the festival has increasingly been drawing a large contingent of allies.
“We’re getting a lot of people online saying they’re coming to support their gay daughter or son,” Newman said. “One woman posted a picture of a shirt that said something about how her gay daughter should have the same rights as her straight daughter and said how excited she is to come to her first Pride festival to support her daughter. So we think we’ll have a really good mix of people.”
In the festival’s 15 years, it’s undergone a number of changes, most notably its tremendous growth.
When it first started, the festival was held in Rodney Square in Wilmington, where it drew an average crowd of about 300 people. In 2002, it moved to Rehoboth Beach and attendance exploded to 3,000, a figure expected to be topped this year.
The event brings in LGBTs and allies from throughout Delaware, Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Washington, D.C., Newman said, making for a day full of old friends and new.
“It’s the biggest [LGBT] event in Delaware,” he added. “And it’s held right on the beach, which is a big bonus because you get all the entertainment and everything else while you’re spending the day at the beach. But it’s a good break from the every-weekend-bar thing and a good opportunity to come out and see some people who you may not have seen in a while and meet new friends.”
For more information, visit www.delawarepride.org.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].