Fort Erie Pride festival returns to Leisureplex this Saturday

The eighth annual Pride festival runs this Saturday, June 27, at the Fort Erie Leisureplex, a free one-day event with drag performances, food and about 32 vendors.

It opens at 11 a.m. at 3 Municipal Centre Drive and runs to 7 p.m., with the main stage starting at noon. The festival dropped its bar this year and is alcohol-free for the first time.

“This year we decided that we were going to keep it just alcohol-free, so it’s a full family event, as it always has been,” said Noel Leboeuf, chair of the festival council.

Leboeuf told Fort Erie Radio the day is built to put LGBTQ2+ and straight residents in the same room.

“It’s for everybody,” he said. “It’s for all walks of life. It’s not just for the LGBTQ community.”

The festival runs each June without grant money. Leboeuf covers the difference when vendor fees and T-shirt sales fall short.

“First off, it’s a grassroots thing, so we don’t get any grants,” he said. “If we don’t make enough money from the vendors or we don’t sell a T-shirt, it comes out of my pocket.”

Leboeuf built the event for people who stay close to home. He said many Fort Erie residents cannot always reach larger Pride events in Toronto or St. Catharines, often for lack of transportation.

“To have something close for them to come and to be themselves and have no pressure, it truly means a lot to those people,” he said.

The festival follows a dispute between the town and Pride Niagara.

Mayor Wayne Redekop said in April that Fort Erie would not join the regional flag-raising because towns were asked to buy gala tickets to take part.

The town nonetheless raised the Pride flag at town hall on June 3.

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