FILE PHOTO - Participants in the 2019 Pride March in downtown Kelowna are pictured in this submitted photo.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Kelowna Pride Society

The Okanagan’s biggest pride festival is moving ahead this week with its main event farmers' market-style due to the COVID pandemic.

The theme of Pride Week 2021, which runs until Oct. 31, is 25 Years of the Pride Movement - The Work is Not Done, a nod to Kelowna Pride’s beginnings.

Pride celebrations were pushed back due to COVID-19 restrictions from June, said general manager Dustyn Baulkham. Last year, the pride society hosted small, personal events due to the pandemic.

“Halloween is kind of the biggest holidays in the LGBTQ community, we often refer to it as gay Christmas, so we thought it was kind of tied in with that, and… we felt for a multitude of reasons that it was likely the best weekend to select the host event,” Baulkham said.

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The festival won’t have a stage this year and will be following the flow-through event rules, similar to the farmers' markets, with more than 30 vendors on site. Vaccinations aren’t a requirement but organizers encourage people to be vaccinated.

All events during Kelowna Pride Week 2021, aside from the Pride Cabaret and mask-making workshop, are free to attend. This is the first year that the Kelowna Pride Festival has been held at the Rotary Centre for the Arts, but the venue is no stranger to inclusive events, having hosted the Sugarplum Ball and the Out and Proud Film Festival, among other events, in the past.

“We feel it’s really important because there isn’t a ton for the LGBT community here in Kelowna… even events that I used to run can’t happen yet so it’s really important that we have have these in-person events but it’s been exhausting for health authorities to make decisions and then communicate them,” he said.

“Theoretically until Saturday rolls around, you’re always still on edge because you don’t know what last-minute decision they’re going to make. That’s one of the biggest challenges leading up to this.”

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Here are some of the key events happening in downtown Kelowna:

• Downtown Bike Derby and Beers for Queers at Jackknife Brewing (727 Baillie Ave.) on Tuesday, Oct. 26
• Trans + Non-Binary Storytelling Evening and Social at the Rotary Centre for the Arts (421 Cawston Ave.) on Thursday, Oct. 28
• 2021 Kelowna Pride Festival on the Rotary Commons (outside the Rotary Centre for the Arts) on Saturday, Oct. 30 — this will include a family mask-making workshop in the RCA Atrium led by local artist Jes Thickson
• Pride Cabaret at the Rotary Centre for the Arts on Saturday, Oct. 30

Find out more about the Kelowna Pride Week 2021 via the organization’s official website here.

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