Over the weekend, Downtown LA was a little more colorful than usual—not to mention very, very sparkly—thanks to the first ever DTLA Proud Festival. The Sunday event turned Pershing Square into a summertime fun zone with themed parties, DJ sets, a pop-up water park, public health and community group activations and live music and performances that filled the plaza and spilled out into five nightclubs across the neighborhood.
The event took place under the glittering canopy of the Liquid Shard kinetic art installation, which fit in perfectly with the festival's whimsical décor of fake grass, bright plastic kiddie pools and inflatable toys, everything rainbow—and, of course, plenty of exposed skin out in the August sunshine.
Nearly 4,000 attendees turned out for the festival, according to estimates published in The Pride. Many of those attendees saw DTLA Proud as a more grassroots response to West Hollywood’s much larger Pride event held each June.
“This is so much more community-oriented than I had expected,” festival-goer Graham Kirkland told The Pride. “Everything in this city is so choreographed and commercial. I had expected much more exploitive corporate presence but it’s virtually absent.”
DTLA Proud, backed by the City of Los Angeles, intends to become an annual event, celebrating the LGBT influence on the revitalization of Downtown LA—and, with as much fun as the crowd seemed to be having, bringing it back at least once a year seems like a great idea. See for yourself below, where we’ve rounded up some of the best Instagrams from the day.