Thousands of people lined city streets in the downtown area on Sunday, May 17, 2026 for the annual Long Beach Pride Parade with Pride flags, colorful fans, glittery outfits and bubbles part of the celebration.
This year’s parade once again began with the group Dykes on Bikes leading the way down Ocean Boulevard on their motorcycles, with the Port of Long Beach float and more than 100 others following right behind. People cheered, waved and showed their enthusiasm.
For more than four decades, the Long Beach Pride Parade has been a staple of the city and region, bringing together friends, families, neighbors and chosen families, among others, to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community.
Brian Griffen, 46, from Los Angeles, is a regular attendee of the parade and recommended others in the area to check it out. Griffen said he was excited to see the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s float and get a free Metro TAP card.
“My favorite part is seeing everyone, and being extremely friendly to each other,” he said, “and it feels like we’re all family.”
The Long Beach Pride Parade’s origin, like most Pride parades, began during a time when neither the city nor the nation at large offered LGBTQ+ communities any cultural, political, medical or legal acceptance. Over the years, the parade has grown and become a commercially successful – and more family-friendly – celebration as LGBTQ+ communities have gained more acceptance.
Pride celebrations, however, have also become politically significant once again. In recent years, there has been an onslaught of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, violence and legislation nationwide.
On Sunday, attendees said this year’s parade continues to be a way to show both pride and resistance, and to learn about groups and organizations that support LGBTQ+ communities.
“There’s this turmoil in the world right now that this kind of event is really important,” said Redondo Beach resident Mitsy Gottsch. “It’s important to show up, now more than ever.”
Besides the Long Beach Pride Parade, the city also had many other events happening throughout Pride weekend. The city and dozens of organizations, businesses and community partners hosted Pride-themed events, gatherings, performances and family-friendly activities.
But the Long Beach Pride Festival, which usually takes place on Saturday and Sunday, was canceled this year.
On Friday, May 15, the day before the festival was set to begin, Long Beach Pride, the nonprofit in charge of the event, issued a statement that it had been canceled. The city later issued a statement saying the festival would not be able to take place this year because critical information necessary to permit the event had not been provided by organizers to ensure a “safe and secure event” for attendees.
The city followed up on Saturday, May 16, with a statement saying that completed applications for festivals of this size are due 65 days in advance, with the option for applicants to request expedited review within 14 days. City staff continued to work throughout the week leading up to the festival, including the day before and in the hours leading up to the scheduled start of the event — which was to begin with Teen Pride on Friday evening — to receive missing documentation, review all information submitted and provide feedback, according to the city statement.
Additional festival site plans were submitted for review about 7 p.m. Friday night, but the necessary information remained incomplete, the statement said. As of Saturday morning, the city said, it did not have approved structural plans for the stage and trusses, electrical plans, detailed security plans, and sufficient detail in the site plan on locations of critical infrastructure to safely grant the necessary event permits.
“Although the timeframe had passed to issue permits for the festival as it was originally envisioned by Long Beach Pride,” the statement said, “the City continued working last night and this morning to identify possible alternative venue options so that Long Beach Pride could still host a meaningful community gathering this weekend.”
City leadership and Convention & Entertainment Center officials met with Long Beach Pride on Friday night to offer two solutions: the Long Beach Terrace Theater and plaza to accommodate up to 3,000 people or the Bixby Park bandshell. Tickets could have been sold at the Terrace Theater, with sponsor booths on the outside, and the Bixby Park bandshell could have hosted a free concert in the park open to the public. Mayor Rex Richardson offered to privately raise funds for up to $50,000 to support either event.
Long Beach Pride, however, chose not to accept these options, the city said in its statement.
Tonya Martin, president of Long Beach Pride, also issued a statement on Saturday, saying that it was heartbreaking to share that the cancellation of the event was final.
“The city will not allow the Long Beach Pride Festival to move forward,” she said. “We truly believed we could find a path forward. For the past 24 to 40 hours, we worked in good faith, stayed at the table and tried everything we could to reach a resolution with the City. Unfortunately, that did not happen.
“The Long Beach Pride Festival has been built by volunteers, sustained by love, and rooted in more than 40 years of visibility, safety and belonging for our community,” Martin added. “We are heartbroken, but we are not going anywhere. The full truth will come out, and we will continue to be transparent with our community. Thank you to everyone who called, shared, showed up and stood with Pride.”
The city instead decided to activate the bandshell at Bixby Park on Sunday after the parade, continuing the celebration with live music and a free drag show hosted by Jewels Long Beach.
Many people at the parade said they were bummed about the festival’s cancellation — but also happy there was an alternative event offered.
“I was just disappointed,” said Miguel Alvarez, 34, of South Los Angeles, who had planned to attend the Long Beach Pride Festival. “For years, ever since the pandemic, things have been kind of going down; people aren’t as organized as they used to be and people aren’t doing what they normally would do.
“We’ve had so much corporate sponsorship go away, we’ve had so much negative discourse, we’ve had so much conservative nonsense come at us left and right,” Alvarez added. “It’s really been hurting our entire community and to see the parade still go on, it’s still something great. The fact that Jewels and everybody last minute said no, we’re not cancelled, we’re still going to do something, it’s amazing.”
Long Beach has also played a vital role in supporting the Pride Parade. This is the third consecutive year the city has organized the parade. In 2024, the Long Beach Pride nonprofit, which had hosted every previous iteration of the parade, asked the local government for help with the event because of financial and other challenges.
This year’s parade once again attracted thousands of spectators. The majority of attendees were near Bixby Park, where the announcers – Jewels Long Beach and community activist Cory Allen – once again presented this year’s parade entries.
Dancing around in the street near Bixby Park, with a pride flag draped over her, was La Mirada resident Jennifer Ramos.
“I love it; I’m here every year,” Ramos said. “I’m here to celebrate who I am, who God made me to be and just love myself. I think that’s the number one thing, just to be out here and celebrate, and to get together with our friends that we might not see all the time but we all carry the same struggles.”
While the parade was the main attraction, there were also vendors along the street selling food, drinks and Pride accessories, such as rainbow hats, Pride flags and feather boas.
“We can dance, we can have fun and just be ourselves,” said Jasmine Gonlin, 32, of Long Beach. “It doesn’t matter what you wear, it doesn’t matter what you look like, or what your abilities are, everybody can come out and have a good time.”
This year’s parade featured 141 entries, the most in the city’s history. There were multiple city agencies, elected officials and local organizations, such as The Center Long Beach and Arts Council for Long Beach, as well as businesses, including Hamburger Mary’s Long Beach and Level Up Dance Studio in Signal Hill.
“The energy was palpable, thousands of people here,” Richardson said after walking the parade. “The sun was shining; it’s just a beautiful day.
“The fact that the city of Long Beach, over the past few years, has played a larger role in the development of the parade shows our commitment to Long Beach Pride and making sure that this is a longstanding and sustainable event because people count on this parade,” Richardson said. “So, 43 years, it’s been consistent and we will make sure that we always have this experience.”
The energy remained high throughout the morning and into the early afternoon for locals and those who attended the parade for the first time.
“After hearing the festival was cancelled, I was like, I really need to be here and just gather for community and support one another,” said Kiki Eaton, 34, Santa Monica, who attended the parade for the first time. “Plus, Long Beach is known for supporting queer groups and communities and so I had the time off, so why not?”
Eaton said she enjoyed seeing the community organizations and dogs dressed up in their “Pride best.”
“When I think about Pride,” Eaton said, “I think of it as reclaiming that right to embrace who you are and your authentic self, and whatever that looks like for you.”