Drag artists, vendors, musicians, dancers and members and allies of the LBGTQ+ community are getting ready to gather in downtown Worcester on Saturday from 3 p.m. to 8 p.m. for what organizers are estimating will be one of the largest Pride Worcester festivals in recent history.
The festival is an annual event held in September that is organized by Pride Worcester — a collaborative effort between organizations and members of the greater Worcester LGBTQ+ community.
David Conner, director of development for Pride Worcester, said the festival is held every September in part to provide a Pride event for Worcester’s student population returning to school for the year.
“We are one of the last stops for Pride before the Fall,” Conner said. “We like it that way.”
This year, the festival is expected to have about 10,000 to 15,000 attendees, according to Pride Worcester Festival Director Ariana Dello Stritto. She said that the number of attendees at the festival climbs each year and hopes there will be good weather on Saturday.
“The weather so far, knock on wood, looks pretty good for Saturday,” Dello Stritto told MassLive. “We’re pretty confident we’ll get close to that 15,000 number but potentially even more. We have over 200 vendors this year.”
The demand from vendors and performers to be at the festival this year was so high, Dello Stritto said waitlists had to be made and some were even denied because there was not enough space to accommodate them.
“Our festival stands out because you can come to festival and you feel the love and see the love and see the smiles on their faces,” Dello Stritto said. “We’re very intentional of who we have at the festival in terms of what vendors are represented.”
Gabriel Blessington, 5, of Dudley, plays with a bubble wand at Pride Worcester on Saturday, Sept. 9, 2023.Dave Thompson | Masslive
The opening act for the festival will be a performance by Worcester drag artist Cortana Wednesday, who will take the main stage at 3:15 p.m.
The festival will feature other drag artists on stage throughout the day, including Lana Backwards and Bootz Morales. Conner told MassLive that drag art has been a part of Worcester’s history for decades and that local drag artists help each other through mentorship.
“There is a whole family component to drag life,” Conner said. “A lot of the younger queens are mentored by the older queens. So during the performances, you’ll see queens that have been here for decades and queens who have just arrived in Worcester.”
There will also be musical artists who will take the stage, including local rock and roll artist Giuliano and local rapper Lil’ Rennie, Conner said.
“The performances are going to be very good this year,” Conner said. “We have a diverse mix of talent and mostly local talent in Worcester.”
Additionally, there will be political figures at the festival. In attendance will be Lt. Gov Kim Driscoll, Attorney General Andrea Campbell, Worcester Mayor Joseph Petty, Worcester City Councilor Thu Nguyen and state Sen. Robyn Kennedy, D-1st Worcester.
For those interested in other activities, Conner said there would be many arts and crafts vendors at the festival, an elders meet-up at the Worcester Beer Garden and a flash mob at 4:30 p.m.
Conner said he encourages attendees to stay at the festival for the flash mob, hinting there would be a surprise during the performance.
Drag entertainer Diva D performs at Pride Worcester 2023.Dave Thompson | Masslive
Even though the festival is this weekend, Conner told MassLive that he and the other Pride Worcester members are preparing for an even larger festival next year. 2025 will be the 50th anniversary of the first Gay Pride Week in Worcester, which took place in June 1975, according to Pride Worcester’s website. During the celebration, a parade was organized by the Metropolitan Community Church and the Worcester Homophile Organization.
“Approximately one hundred people marched from City Hall down Main Street to University Park, across from Clark University, bearing signs proclaiming Gay Pride, Gay Love, and Gay Power,” the website reads.
In honor of the 50th anniversary, plans are underway to hold a parade next year, according to Dello Stritto and Conner. Dello Stritto said that a parade is a lot of work for the four members of Pride Worcester and that the last one was held in 2019. She is hopeful, however, that Pride Worcester can bring back the parade next year.
“Lots of folks still think we have the parade just because they see the magnitude of the festival and think that folks must come to form a parade downtown,” she said. “We haven’t had a parade in many years, and hopefully, there will be a parade next year.
While the 50th anniversary next year will be a milestone for Pride Worcester, Conner told MassLive this year’s festival already has abundant energy even before it has started.
“It’s just really positive,” he said. “The buy-in from the community, the businesses, the vendors. We also got reports that the vendors do really well here so they are looking forward to this.”
