Long Beach Pride 2025 faces massive uphill battles with its festival, one of the longest-running Pride festivals in the nation. It has lost Walmart, McDonald’s, and an array of other large corporate sponsors, forcing the organization to scale down the party’s scope and entertainment. That latter part has caused a harsh array of mockery online since Pride released their festival schedule, prompting calls for new organizers, criticisms of the lack of diversity, and disappointment.
When asked if the pull-outs from major sponsors have to do with President Donald Trump’s dismantling of diversity initiatives that has affected both public and private sectors, contracted Pride event organizer Robert Marquez of Time/Space said, “One-million-percent. We’ve never had an issue with them before and now we face an issue.
“But we’re trying to work with what we have and, in my eyes, we have a festival that is by the community and for the community. We have some incredible local talent in a space that is really being led by locals.”
The pared-down Long Beach Pride 2025 festival.
With less than $100K in the bank and pending contributions of around $300K, Long Beach Pride’s festival will be definitively pared down and will not meet interim Pride president Elsa Martinez’s previously stated $700K budget. Turning 40 back in 2023, the festival usually costs between $1M and $1.2M. This isn’t even considering the gem of Long Beach Pride’s annual celebration, its parade on Ocean Boulevard. Thankfully, that $150K operation is being mostly lifted by the City’s $100K allocation for the parade, along with other sponsorships, including 2nd District Councilmember Cindy Allen and the Port of Long Beach. (The latter of which also gives a huge sponsorship to the festival that totals over $125K.)
The dependence on historical sponsors—rather than the organization continually updating its outreach and connections—has led to the situation currently facing it. No Latin Stage—a defining characteristic of Long Beach Pride. And that is rough to hear—but there are some stellar local organizations and talent filling the lineup.
Much-respected Secret Service? Bringing on the DJs for Sunday. Hym the Rapper? Grammy winner and respected queer artist. Jewels? Back with her drag show.
The current lineup for Long Beach Pride 2025.
Saturday, May 17:
- Throughout the day: DJ Icy Ice, DJ BSelecta, DJ 360
- Hym The Rapper
- MegaWoof
- Plus two special guests
Sunday, May 18:
- Secret Service Presents: DJ Minx, Cherry Lee, Scott Martin, Noir D Costas
- TIancho
- Jewels Drag Show Extravaganza
- Mamboson
- BallRoom Dance off – House Of Long Beach
- Tori Kay
- Goerge Micheal Reborn Tribute
Long Beach Pride was set to become a stellar representative amid the SoCal Pride celebrations.
I have never been shy with my criticisms of Long Beach Pride. It extended back in 2019 to a piece I wrote telling Long Beach Pride to look at other prides, specifically to diversify their festival, and include more queerness. Long Beach Pride is a stubborn organization that continually dismisses youthful voices—and, at one point, it seemed to have heard this criticism.
Ditching its archaic name in 2020—the organization was long called Long Beach Lesbian and Gay Pride—the festival came out with what was quite a banger of a lineup in 2022, with Paulina Rubio and Iggy Azaela, amongst much-loved Mexican figures like Natalia Jiminez, headlining. The result? One of the largest turn-outs in the festival’s history and much-deserved praise for evolving.
From my perspective, Long Beach Pride was intelligently figuring out its role in a large SoCal Pride collective. L.A. Pride formally separated itself from West Hollywood in order to be more reflective of the L.A. queer community, while WeHo continued to hold its annual celebration just off of Santa Monica Boulevard. L.A. Pride became the definitive A-Lister Pride, as a I call it, garnering acts like Mariah Carey, Ricky Martin, and Megan Thee Stallion. WeHo? It continued on its Coachella-like vibes, with acts like Charli XCX, Carley Rae Jepsen, Years & Years, and Megan Trainor.
This then put Long Beach in a distinct category: With Paulina and Iggy headlining 2022, Long Beach would be the Latino/hip hop-centric Pride that would complete a really great tryptich of Prides in SoCal. WeHo: Festival like. L.A.: A-lister. Long Beach: Latino and hip hop. It fit the wonderful array representing SoCal’s styles, vibes, and auras.
The question of whether Long Beach Pride 2025 should have happened at all.
Alas, Long Beach Pride failed to follow that model, with each year progressively garnering less and less attendance and headliners returning to more, frankly put, older acts that don’t connect with queer youth on a large scale.
The same day the City announced that parade spots are available to apply for, the Long Beach Pride board held a meeting on whether or not to continue with the festival’s current date on May 17 and 18, or move it to August. Instead of a block party-style festival where more money could be put toward entertainment and vibes—or just simply moving the festival entirely to next year in order to focus on sponsorship building and capital accumulation—the Board ultimately decided to stick with the Marina Green expanse its historically been at as well as holding onto its May dates.
