I have been to Atlanta Pride at least three times. The first one I remember mostly a Femme Mafia party in Rachael’s backyard with multiple kiddie pools and enough rainbow jello shots to cover Michael Anthony’s countertop in preparation. The event is fuzzy but I do remember pulling a Brandon Walsh and hiding a too-drunk-to-drive Femme’s keys. I don’t recall if we went to the formal Pride festivities in town.
The second Pride I remember attending was one of the “parking lot” Pride years. Typically in Piedmont Park there was a time when it was in a parking lot instead. Cement gets hot. We went to a lot of booths. I’m pretty sure I was still drinking so that memory is also fuzzy. It was fun but not memorable. I do remember me and Rachael looked cute and did a promenade.
Atlanta is my hometown of choice and I have been here many times in twenty years so maybe we went to another one? But never in the park.
This year, I came to town specifically for the Alchemy Burn, which I attended for the first time last year with Rachael and had a blast. (Podcast episode 187 is my reflection and explanation about the event if you’re curious what a Burn involves and what the culture taught me about community and interdependence.)
It worked out for me to get to stay for two weeks this time, a kind of “work from Atlanta” gaycation and other than teaching Zoom aerobics twice, a pet Reiki / psychic reading, some texting with health concierge clients, I have been mostly resting and prepping for the Burn. Sometimes you gotta trust the flow of rest and work.
Given all that rest you would think the gay stamina and excitement for Pride would be high. Rachael’s couch is comfy, her dogs are great and there are abundant just-for-fun beverages (category includes fizzy water, magnesium beverages, decaf iced tea etc). I checked with my intuition about whether to go to the Pride Festival or Dyke March and I was told that we would have fun and our energy would level up the people around us without us having to exert any special effort. That was enough to motivate me off the couch and into a full face of make-up.
When I emerged from the guest room wearing a red sequin dress Rachael said “That escalated quickly,” and went to go get ready.
I used to try to squeeze every bit of daytime and nightlife activities during NYC Pride (and that area has at least one Pride festival per borough) which is why I call it Gay Stamina Month. I’m grateful I’ve been willing to change and become more in tune with my intuition and what my body needs. When assessing our options for how to have a Pride weekend, I liked the idea of going through the Pride booths at Piedmont Park, the main festival part of Pride with at least three stages.
I haven’t looked at any websites or any official Atlanta Pride communications. One of the best parts of having whatever guest room Rachael has as my gaycation home is that she knows what’s going on and all I need to do is follow her.
She wisely chose to get us an uber to Piedmont Park which is in the middle of the city through the traffic with pretty limited parking for the amount of gays streaming in. (Sexuality is a spectrum, allies are wonderful AND I just like to think about us celebrating the gay parts of ourselves at Pride in defiant rebellion of the heterocapitalistwhitesupremacist overculture. You choose how you want to language that experience!) Also: one of our last remaining Stonewall elders just became an ancestor. Miss Major Griffin-Gracy ascended on Monday—if you’re queer you owe a big part of your liberation to her work.
Atlanta Pride has no cover charge which I think is the correct choice. I worked as Volunteer Coordinator for Jersey City Pride for five years. It was also free during that time and the hard working volunteer Board I was part of fundraised and got sponsorships. Corporate pride is cliche and annoying (and side eye to any corporation gutting DEI while acting like they care for gay people) but it does support the very expensive infrastructure and permitting required to host a Pride Festival.
The Dyke March was started as a protest to the corporate Pride (I have been told by my gay elders) and many continue to this day as grass roots community funded non-permitted protests. I love.
Purity is a symptom of white supremacist culture and I do my best to allow nuance. I loved Atlanta Pride in Piedmont Park! And I’m glad and grateful there is no cover charge.
Rach and I walked through first the corporate tents. The Cocacola booth was doing THE MOST and since Atlanta is the hometown of Coke it tracks that Coke sponsors the main pride stage AND has this rockin booth. Seriously, it’s some kind of trailer with a gogo box inside of it and a queer Black woman DJ on the ceiling spinning incredible music. We got tiny Diet Coke cans (perfect because I prefer the top third crispy part of a regular size DC).
The party vibes were so fun right there at the Coke booth. Coming in and out of the park we stopped to dance and party with the other revelers nearby.
Rach walked me over to the edge of a meadow to see all the pop up tents folks had lined up at 6AM to place for the day. (Talk about Gay Stamina.) A great opportunity for folks to have good seats for the main stage and some shade or a personal gathering space.
The corporate booths continued and we were gifted a lot of swag. It had been so long since I’d been to a main Pride festival that I forgot how much swag happens and was glad I brought a big tote bag.
A sign of the 2020s, since Atlanta recently decriminalized cannabis, in addition to White Claw and other alcoholic beverage samples, there was a THC bevvy sample offered to us. And delightfully I noticed many whifs of vapes and joints as we wandered. I remember in the 2013 Dyke March in NYC scooting into a Manhattan alley to smoke with my friends. I love this evolution since I stopped drinking in 2013 and now just party with the plant.
Rach kept saying that the next crop of tents was going to be independent sellers and then community organizations and I truly couldn’t believe how massive and long this festival was. At one point she said we were only 2/3 through it and we had been wandering for an hour already.
The best booth overall for me was the crystal shop. There was a butch with some kind of rock crushing equipment available for anyone who wanted to buy a geode for $5-$20 depending on the size and get it popped open for them. It was a great demo and the vibes in the crystal tent were exquisite. I bought a quartz crystal for Rach & her spouse J’s house to put under the rosemary. (It enhances the protection and healing offered by that plant, which I suggest by the entrance to the property or to the home or both.)
It took me a bit to realize we were walking by a gorgeous lake and I loved how easy it was to take a break from the crowd and go be in nature and regulate. I loved how the trees in the park provided abundant shade. We passed a Family stage for all ages entertainment (no one performing but lots of kids running around the stage and seating area). We wandered through an artist marketplace tent with little tables full of gorgeous art.
We took a break on a SWING overlooking a fountain in the lake. I love getting to be on a swing built for grown up rest.
We kept going and hit the second stage with drag performers. There were food trucks and a few bar booths.
Walking through the crowd past the booths was much like being IN a pride parade without the hassle and crush of being on the sidelines. I said “Happy Pride!” to anyone who made eye contact and waved the Inclusive Pride flag I got from a booth. Rach and I took some of our best and gayest photos together and we essentially just did a two and a half hour walk around a lake and practiced our promenading for the Burn this weekend.
I like to call things like meeting a friend for a walk around a lake or a fitness class a “self care hang” and this for sure qualifies. Also, we left before we had massive human needs and didn’t buy expensive food and had a great time.
We walked a few blocks to catch our uber and while we were at the light this pair on a red motorcycle stopped at the light. I hollered to the Femme that I liked her gorgeous fun color faux fur coat and then the driver clad in all red leathers pulled off their helmet to say “Bevin! It’s Davey!” and it was the aerialist teacher that I taught an aerobics & aerialist class with in 2018! What a small serendipitous world. And since Dykes on Bikes is my fav part of any Pride Parade I loved that I got to witness a motorcycle moment without needing to get up early for Pride Sunday.
All in all I give Atlanta Pride in the Park 10/10 and highly suggest it for any Pride travel you might want to experience. Delta was a corporate sponsor and I do love to fly with them (not spon, Rach sponsored this trip with her skymiles).
An earlier iteration of Bevin would have wanted to DO ALL THE THINGS but given the evolution of my body and spirit and how I feel in crowds now, the two and a half hours was plenty. I work hard to regard myself with love and grace. I’m saving my gay stamina for Alchemy this weekend and grateful I will have a bed & a chair really nearby to rest whenever I need to.
PS Rach and I met through a blogging platform in 2002 and got to meet in person in 2005. Internet friends are real friends and I’m suuuuper grateful for our passionate confessional blogging in the early aughts for bringing us close and for our long standing friendship! I love you Rach!!!!
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