Prides around the country adapt to COVID-19

by Rex Apps and Michael Mahler

In these uncertain times, communities across the country are looking to find ways to connect and celebrate virtually. The shift towards online festivities will help prevent the spread of the coronavirus, while still providing a safe way to celebrate the culture and heritage of the LGBTQ community. This was the focus of a conference call on May 2, hosted by the United States Association of Prides.

During the call organizers from Motor City Pride, Sioux City Pride, Twin Cities Pride and Greater Palm Springs Pride shared the structure of their virtual events. Most of these will be live streamed through the host Pride's websites or their social media showcasing their local entertainment. There will be a wide variety of musicians, comedians, celebrities and performance artists. These will be to highlight the great diversity that we have in our community. Also discussed were ways of making Pride event interactive, by having virtual meeting spaces to connect with vendors and non-profits.

If you would like to participate virtually in these Prides, be sure to like Erie Gay News on Facebook and subscribe to our email list to get the latest on these virtual Pride Events.

We will all miss the energy that an in-person celebration of Pride would provide, but through these virtual Prides we can all celebrate together safely.

Some notes we took from the meeting and other sources

Motor City Pride will be doing some taped entertainment ahead but will also include live performances. The live video had a number of slots, including not only entertainers, but also government officials, and celebrities. This also included pre-recorded thank you for their major sponsors. There was a mutiple section laid out in an online "map" of the event. One of the these was an Arts section included exhibits from an art project that could not be done in-person under current circumstance

At least one Pride mentioned Twitch as a video platform. https://www.twitch.tv/ This is owned by Amazon currently, and Amazon Prime subscribers have a Twitch Prime subscription. Other Prides may use a webinar solution from other platforms, such as Zoom.

Sioux City Pride is working on an oral history project. They previously had planned a project with a local museum as the local museum didn’t have any materials for area LGBTQ history. They had planned a table for folks to record memories in front of the museum. This was going to switch to having folks submit videos created via a webcam at their house or others that the museum would store.Jamestown NY Pride had also discussed a smilar projectr. Folks could submit memories of coming out or other history, so that there was an element for participation.

Twin Cities did a survey and their people wanted a Virtual Marketplace. The plan was to have businesses and organizations have Zoom meetings (or whatever online conferencing solution that business or organziation wanted to use) with a list of vendors and orgnizations participating to go up before hand but people can do a "virtual" meet ups on June 1 during the time that their Pride was going to happen. The platform discussed had a list of vendors/non-profits with their logo, possibly a photo of their project and then a link to a virtual meet up that the vendor/non-profit could optionally have.

This included Virtual Bingo- Stop in and get your Bingo card marked from local vendors who have helped to support Pride- the one who get them all wins a gift card. 

Twin Cities pride also discussed a Lawn Signs campaign to "Stay Proud"- this would have lawn signs similar to what are used in political campaigns to allow people to display Pride in a way that is visible, but not require congregating. People asked to take pictures and  post to social media.

Some Prides mentioned "Text to Give"- option for people to help support the Pride. One platform mentioned for text to give was GiveLively.

Virtual Pride Parade, one representative from a group might make a quick webcam video of 30 seconds or a short period, or maybe that group would make a video of a short group virtual meeting. Zoom and others can record video.

Denver- Pride "Shout Outs" through social media for the month of June
Friends/ Family/ Entertainers
Commercials from around the community
Educational segments ie: Nonbinary vs Transgender What's the difference?

Rhode Island Pride is coordinating with the Rhode Island Food Bank to have volunteers deliver food to those in need.