Saturday, June 3, 2023
Essex Pride Festival
at Maple Street Park
#EssexVTPride
We're so excited to bring the first Pride Festival to our greater Essex and Essex Junction community! This will be a special place to celebrate, honor, and hold space for our LGBTQIA+ friends, neighbors, loved ones, and family. We hope you'll join us!
-The Essex Pride Committee
The day begins at 1pm with a rainbow ribbon-cutting ceremony, followed by a walking parade through Maple Street Park. We'll kick off the Festival with Vermont's chapter of Drag Story Hour featuring Emoji Nightmare and Katniss Everqueer, and an afternoon filled with performances by local artists and musicians, including youth from Essex High School. Throughout the day, there will be vendors and local organizations, as well as a Community Canvas that we invite everyone to contribute to. We'll end the event with a joyful and celebratory dance party with GAYBAR.
The performers
Vermont Drag Story Hour
Featuring Emoji Nightmare and Katniss Everqueer
Emoji Nightmare
Hostess with the mostess
GAYBAR
Dance Party
EHS Cast of Rent & Chamber Choir
Rhedd Rhumm
Drag Queen
Prince Muffin
Drag King
Vermont's Freedom and Unity Chorus
tip/toe
Musician
See the Full List!
Our Sponsors & Partners
*All sponsors will also have tables at the Festival. Please say hi and thank them for helping us in this awesome celebration of queer people!
The Vendors, Artists, and Organizations
ACLU Vermont
American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
Audubon Vermont
Between the Willows
Bernie's Mitten Maker with Vermont Teddy Bear
Big Gay Print Shop
Brownell Library
ChubbySpaceCat Comics
Dax Dubie Art
Essex CHIPS Teen Center
FireStyler
First Congregational Church of Essex Junction
Hazelbuds Clay Co
Heartbroken Banana
Heating Cats Pawblishing
HoneyBee Heather Art
Local Motion
Moms Demand Action - Vermont
National Alliance on Mental Illness - NAMI
Pintegration
Planned Parenthood Vermont
Sangha Studio
Sarah Bea Art
Small Business Association
Studio Fisk Aveda
Sunrise Chittenden
T-Mobile
Vermont Folklife
Vermont Free Mom Hugs
Vermont Queer Archives
Williston Community Theater
With food from:
The Venue
Maple Street Park
75 Maple Street, Essex Junction
Maple Street Park is home to a variety of multi-purpose fields, baseball fields, a volleyball court, and other fields available for rent to individuals or organizations. Essex Junction Recreation and Parks has generously offered their large pavilion space and soccer field for the Essex Pride Festival.
Accessibility Information
The Festival pavilion is accessible by a flat, dirt, walkway and is about the length of a football field from the entrance. Maple Street Park has two areas for accessible parking - one at the entrance near the basketball courts, and another at the main Park entrance. There will be some seating available, with park tables, park benches, and bleacher seating throughout the area, but we also encourage you to bring your own preferred seating. Our incredible friends from Inclusive Arts Vermont will be available to support access needs as well.
Our aim is for this to feel as inclusive as possible. If you need anything that isn't outlined above, please contact us at EssexVTPride@gmail.com by May 15.
Contact US
The first Essex Pride event: a dozen folks in the pouring rain at Five Corners (June 2022)
Disclaimer: Essex Pride and the Essex Pride Festival are coordinated by the Essex Pride Committee. We're a small group of community members and are not a part of or affiliated with any official entities. We're just a handful of folks who want to create events meant to uplift our LGBTQIA+ community during a time where queer and trans people are increasingly the targets of hate. 100% of profits raised from events we put on are contributed back to official organizations whose resources uplift our community. Homophobia and transphobia have no place in Essex - our goal is to make that clear to anyone who thinks otherwise.
