NWA Pride: Something for everyone
by Hayden Smith
Staff Writer
Get ready for one of the biggest Pride celebrations in the South-central area with the 11th annual NWA Pride.
Northwest Arkansas Pride (NWA Pride) is a multi-day, multi-event, multi-venue, weeklong festival celebrating diversity and promoting the visibility of Arkansas' lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer community.
NWA Pride will draw an estimated 8,500 people from Arkansas and surrounding states and is hosted by the NWA Center for Equality.
From Sunday, June 18, to Sunday, June 25, events will be held all over the area, with various themes and events for each day.
Sunday kicks off Pride festivities with a field day of volleyball in Bentonville’s Memorial Park at 1 p.m., followed by a special night for Transgender Pride on Monday.
The historic Club C4 in Fayetteville, host to many other Pride activities, will be showing a documentary on the second floor on Monday June 19 at 7 p.m., detailing the history of transgender people within the LGBTQ movement. After the first full showing of the documentary, music will start downstairs for a dance party while the documentary repeats throughout the night.
On Tuesday at 6 p.m., Terra Studios will be hosting Pride’s official Family Night, celebrating the diversity of families in the LGBTQ community with a night full of activities accessible to all ages.
Wednesday through Friday will be filled with good old fashioned bars and drag shows, with Happy Hour at Tavola Trattoria in Bentonville Wednesday night, Drag Queen Bingo at Foghorn’s in Fayetteville Thursday night, a pub crawl down Dickson Street and a drag show in Club C4 in Fayetteville Friday night.
Saturday is the crown jewel of the Pride festivities, starting off with the Pride Parade down Dickson street at 11 a.m. Events then head towards Fayetteville Town Center for the NWA Pride Festival, involving booths and events run by local LGBTQ organizations and allied local businesses at 1 p.m. and ending in the 8th Annual White Party in Club C4 at 8 p.m.
Sunday wraps things up in a call to kindness and intersectionality with an interfaith potluck lunch, held by the open and accepting Spirit of Peace NWA Community Church at 12:30 p.m.
“The coolest thing about Northwest Arkansas is the culture of it,” says Kate Johnson, the Programs and Volunteers Director at the NWA Center for Equality. “We have everything from art to nature to film festivals.”
She says that you can find amazing things all over Benton and Washington counties, but Fayetteville, the epicenter of NWA Pride, really ties it all together.
Northwest Arkansas Pride is the biggest Pride festival in Arkansas, covering more of a region than any other. Johnson describes it as a cultural hub.
“We’ve got the University of Arkansas, we’re listed as one of the top five places to live in the United States and we’re a top five tourist destination.”
Between the family events, the drag shows, the white party and the potluck, Johnson says there is a wide enough variety of activities that every single attendee can find something to enjoy at this year’s NWA Pride.
Copyright 2017 The Gayly – June 9, 2017 @ 12:45 p.m.