PRIDE does St. Louis

June 26, 2011

PRIDE does St. Louis

This weekend was PRIDE in St. Louis and I was stoked to check it out. I'd only ever been to PRIDE once before in Atlanta (the mecca) and I was curious to compare the two and see what the gay community in St. Louis looked like. It was a great weekend and I'm really glad I went out to support the community and share in fellowship with them.

The festival was held on Saturday and Sunday in Tower Grove Park not far from campus. I headed down there Saturday around 4:30pm to volunteer from 5pm-8pm. I ended up being placed in a beer tent at the front of the park and while I enjoyed my first hour, the other volunteers were not folks I was clicking with and there was a lot of chaos going on. They ended up closing our beer tent around 6 and told us we could go home. Disappointed that my volunteer experience was not quite what I had in mind, I grabbed a couple free beers and walked toward the main stage to check out the scene where Kimberly Locke (American Idol Season I don't remember) was scheduled to perform at 7. The main beer tent close to the stage was SLAMMED with people and only three volunteers. So I walked up and asked if they needed help and they did! So I jumped behind the tent and spent the next 2.5 hours serving, listening to Kimberly Locke and hanging out with the guys in the tent who were a lot of fun and much more enjoyable than the first crew. Things got crazy toward the end with us packing up so sadly, I didn't get a chance to really solidify hoping to make some new friends but the experience was well worth it.

I hadn't planned to go out Saturday night but a friend was at a White Party in the Grove so I headed there to meet her and her friends. The Party was OK but not worth the $15 admission and I should have stayed for the burlesque show but I was wiped. After a scary, torrential storm rolled through and flooded the streets leaving me stranded at a gas station for about 20 minutes, I was able to make it home using a secondary route since my primary route was under water :(

I got up this morning and went to brunch down in Soulard with a friend and a friend of hers that was visiting before we went back to PRIDE to watch the Parade. Photos are below! It was WARM and pretty packed but exciting to see so many folks come out! We walked through the festival after but there were SO MANY PEOPLE and it was SO HOT that we quickly lost our energy and headed home.

All in all though, a great PRIDE!