Queen City Pride is an
LGBT pride festival, held annually in
Regina,
Saskatchewan, Canada.[1] The event is held mid-June each year, normally in the week following
Saskatoon Pride.[2] The festival is administered by Regina Pride Inc., a non-profit corporation in the province of Saskatchewan.
The event kicks off with a raising of the
rainbow flag at the
Regina City Hall on the Monday of Pride Week,[3] and concludes with a parade and community fair on the Saturday.[3] An estimated 3-4,000 people attend the event each year.[4][5]
History
The event was first held on June 23 1990, though other pride marches and rallies were held in Regina during the 1970s and 1980s.[6][7] The police chief refused to sign off on the event, so the march went ahead illegally.[7][8] Somewhere between 50 and 90 people attended the original event, with some covering their faces out of fear of their identities being known.[7][8][9][10]
The 2014 event marked the first time in the city's history that the incumbent mayor,
Michael Fougere, presided over the raising of the rainbow flag to kick off the event.[11] Nearly 2,000 people attended the event in 2017.[12] In 2019, the event's 30th anniversary, the theme was "Growing from Many Voices".[9]
The event was canceled in 2020 due to the
COVID-19 pandemic.[5] The event went forward in a limited capacity in 2021,[13] and fully returned in person in 2022, with the theme "Together Again".[5][14]