Since the emergence of Gay Pride marches and parades in the late 70s in many of the world’s largest cities, some fantastic new LGBTQ+ friendly events have emerged, providing a platform for underrepresented artists, and promoting inclusivity, alongside all the usual joy of going to a festival. We take a look at the evolution of Pride events and LGBTQ+ festivals, the best ones to go to and the importance of supporting LGBTQ+ events and diverse music festivals.

The History of LGBTQ+ Events and Festivals

In the US, five months after the Stonewall riots which took place in New York City on June 27^th 1969, activists proposed that an annual march should be held on the last Sunday in June to commemorate them. New York City, LA, San Francisco and Chicago all planned concurrent marches. Over a dozen LGBTQ+ rights groups were involved in the planning, and grassroots activist and founder of the New York Area Bisexual Network Brenda Howard, who is sometimes known as the ‘Mother of Pride,’ coordinated a week-long series of events around Pride Day, including a dance.

As Queerty.com notes, ‘Howard’s voice remained one of the loudest, most exuberant and productive of the time. It’s her efforts that helped gay activists lay the foundation for week-long celebrations of Gay Pride leading up to the climactic Gay Pride Parade.’

One of the biggest Pride parades in the world started in 1978. The Orgullo Gay de Madrid (MADO) takes place during the weekend immediately after June 28^th, International Day of LGBT Pride (this year, it’s kicking off on 1^st July). It’s now considered the biggest Pride party in Europe, and one of the most important in the world, only surpassed by San Francisco. It’s expanded since the late 70s and early 80s to attract more than a million and a half people every year.

CSD Berlin (aka Christopher Street Day) is also held in memory of the Stonewall Riots. The first CSD in Berlin took place on June 30^th 1979, when 450 protestors took to the streets of West Berlin – the prevailing mood was boisterous and cheerful, and today the CSD Parade is a celebration of queer life in Berlin. This year, the motto is ‘Be their voice – and ours! For more empathy and solidarity’, with the organisers promoting acceptance.

Rio de Janeiro’s Gay Pride is – in a city that knows how to party – the second biggest event after Carnival. Known as Orgulho LGBT in Brazil, it was founded in May 1993.

The Best of the Fests

JackieO’ Summer Party - Mykonos, Greece

Greece is one of the best-known destinations in terms of being supportive of LGBTQ+ culture, due in part to its early non-discrimination laws. The JackieO’ Summer Party lasts all summer in Mykonos and welcomes music acts ranging in diversity.

The Outing – Co. Clare, Ireland

Ireland has long fought for LGBTQ+ equality, making same-sex marriage legal in 2010. Head to The Outing for a fusion of music, comedy, ceili bands, queer arts and the best of Ireland’s (and the rest of the world’s) performers, drag artists and DJs. The three-day festival takes place over Valentine’s Day – with an emphasis on match-making, it bills itself as ‘the World’s Only Queer Love Festival’.

Osheaga Festival - Montreal

Canada’s largest music festival takes place in early August in Montreal. This year’s line-up features popular queer names such as Rina Sawayama, Kim Petras, 070 Shake and CloZee.

Circuit Festival – Barcelona

Spain’s Circuit Festival lays claim to being ‘the biggest international gay event’ and this year takes place from 5^th-13^th August. There are a range of parties across the event, so there’s guaranteed to be something for everyone. Since starting in 2007, Circuit festivals are now popular around the world, from Bangkok’s GCircuit to Tel Aviv, Amsterdam and WE Party in Madrid.

Milkshake Festival – Amsterdam

Taking place the week before the city’s annual Gay Pride, Milkshake is labelled as a festival ‘for all who love’. It promotes and celebrates queer culture and is a multi-genre electronic dance festival featuring electronic, house, disco, pop, techno, R&B and dancehall.

Mighty Hoopla - London

As the NME says, ‘Mighty Hoopla has managed to carve out a real niche for itself since its inaugural 2017 edition. The feel of the place hits somewhere between a daylight version of Glastonbury’s NYC Downlow, the world’s messiest hen party and the unofficial annual summit for every queer person living within the M25 (and indeed beyond).’

Founded by the team behind club night Sink the Pink, this isn’t an LGBTQ+ festival per se, ‘but celebrating queer culture forms a huge part of its ethos. While women and queer artists remain woefully underrepresented on the majority of festival bills, that’s not the case here.’

Who’s on the Bill?

As the Guardian highlighted, ‘Glastonbury caused consternation when it announced three male headliners this year, but it is far from the only event to have a complete lack of gender equality at the top of its bill. Latitude festival, End of the Road, All Points East and TRNSMT are just a few examples of major events that have no women headlining in 2023, and last year, a BBC report found that just 13% of UK headliners at the top 50 festivals were female.’

A report by Ticketmaster from 2019 identified that 29% of the 4,000 UK festival attendees interviewed felt that there’s not enough diversity in festival line-ups. And if there’s such a stark lack of representation for female artists at festivals, then LGBTQ+ representation is desperately needed as a priority consideration for organisers.

The lack of inclusivity in music festivals’ lineups points to systemic issues within the whole music ecosystem. Both Glastonbury’s Emily Eavis and Simon Taffe, co-founder of the End of the Road festival, have pointed to ‘pipeline’ problems, especially with regard to female performers. Historically, few bookers have paid much attention to diversity, so female acts – and, by extension, minority acts – haven’t progressed up the bill. If acts aren’t afforded any slots, then they won’t gain either festival experience or exposure.

As a way to challenge this status quo, music agent Hannah Shogbola, who represents acts including Katy B and Jaguar, uses an ‘inclusivity rider’ when she’s negotiating bookings for events, which stipulates that another act from a marginalised group gets offered the same opportunity on the line-up. She told the Guardian that, ‘It means that when I’m negotiating a deal, we will not play the line-up unless there is a fellow Black or brown person, a fellow non-binary person or a fellow gay person.’

Vick Bain, who set up The F-List, an online directory of female and gender minority musicians available to play at festivals, identified the scale of the issue: ‘We need hundreds of festivals out there doing the work, being more committed and proactive, starting with the smaller stages and then actively working with agents to pick out the talent, develop it and give them the opportunities.’ This would then put pressure on talent agents to ask the labels for more LGBTQ+ artists, and record labels to find the talent and invest in it.

Positive Change

However, Xtramagazine.com flagged that things may be moving in the right direction in the mainstream – Stateside, at least, with Frank Ocean the first openly queer male artist to headline Coachella. The festival boasted 20 openly queer artists on the lineup, an increase on the 14 who took to the stage in 2022. Artists such as Remi Wolf, Wet Leg, Yungblud and Ethel Cain represented genres from R&B to indie rock, electronic to folk.

Primavera Sound in Barcelona and Madrid included well-known names such as Halsey, Måneskin and Japanese Breakfast, as well as exciting up-and-comers like California rapper Channel Tres, Self Esteem and Dominican rapper and songwriter Tokischa, together with headline names such as Christine and the Queens, Ezra Furman and St. Vincent.

And based on data collected by Luminate, Billboard and Queer Capita in their ‘Power of LGBTQ+ Music’ report, which focuses on the influence, success and importance the queer community has on the music industry’s visibility and representation, queer audiences shape and create trends that are then taken up by the mainstream.

As Laura Vanison, VEVO’s senior director of consumer and artist insights points out, when it comes to representation in the music industry, ‘For decades, LGBTQ+ artists have made groundbreaking contributions to music, and their music videos have provided the community with increased visibility. These artists are exemplary leaders, with unparalleled cultural influence, embedded in the cultural zeitgeist, with reach spanning beyond the LGBTQ+ community.’

Music Festival Economics

Fans, particularly Gen Z music fans, want to see artists that reflect them. However, it’s undeniable that the idea of tapping into this more far-reaching fanbase and their purchasing power is what might also move the needle for the music industry’s gate-keepers.

The commercial opportunities for event organisers platforming LGBTQ+ artists is borne out by data quoted by Festivalpro.com, from Statista in 2021. Looking at audiences across 21 countries, whilst 8% of those surveyed identified as LGBTQ+, the survey found that 13% of the population have attended an LGBTQ+ event (Pride march or festival) in a show of support.

This support means that, for event and festival organisers, creating and running a festival has become easier to finance, as corporate sponsorship is more readily available. In terms of the economy, festivals bring in tourists, create jobs and generate income for local businesses. As an example, Glastonbury’s five-day festival has over 200,000 people visiting Worthy Farm, and the turnover rivals that of a small city. Based on music tourism figures from UK Music, music festivals generate direct and indirect spending in the region of £1.7 billion.

Social Progress Through Music Festivals

And perhaps even more important than festivals’ contribution to the economy, a report found that ‘the British festival phenomenon helps create feelings of belonging between like-minded people, while enhancing social cohesion.’

The University of East Anglia (UEA)’s report, ‘From Glyndebourne to Glastonbury: The Impact of British Music Festivals’, based on a review of more than 170 books, papers and reports, found that, ‘Festivals are often sites of multicultural and multigenerational music consumption where fans (including families) can congregate and socialise.’

Music festivals’ ability to satisfy a need for community, as well as bringing social and political issues into focus, would seem to be particularly applicable when it comes to LGBTQ+ acts, as does festivals’ tendency to increase social cohesion.

The Musicians’ Union, which strives to improve the landscape for LGBTQ+ musicians, points out that conditions in the UK have deteriorated for the community. The International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association Europe (ILGA-Europe), which produces a yearly ‘rainbow map’ of 49 countries across Europe, revealed that the UK – which led the table in 2015 – had the most significant drop in ranking, falling from 10th to 14th place. The Union is also working with Come Play With Me (CPWM), as, ‘LGBTQ+ musicians, managers, tour production teams, venue and festival staff and more are all hugely important parts of the sector, so it’s really important that we create spaces where people can truly be themselves and feel able to advocate for each other.’

Both more support and more visibility for LGBTQ+ festivals overall, and LGBTQ+ artists on mainstreams lineups, would help in these aims. Expanding the music festival community can only be a good thing for the whole of society.