For a long time, Miami had politely excused itself from partaking in annual World Pride Month celebrations. By June, the Miami sun is already hot enough to melt off even the most seasoned drag queen’s full face—and who wants to plan a parade in the midst of hurricane season?
Besides, New York pretty much has the East Coast covered when it comes to Pride festivities, and April’s Miami Beach Pride is a fun way to kick everything off. At least, this had been the thinking from 1995 until around five years ago, when Wynwood Pride was born.
The annual Pride celebration on the mainland stands defiantly in the face of heat waves, tropical storms and gay flight to Fire Island, boldly asserting: We’re here, we’re queer and Miami’s LGBTQ+ community deserves the world—including a proper World Pride celebration alongside everyone else.
The year was 2019, and soon-to-be co-founders Jose Atencio, Scott Bernardez and Jor-El Garcia sensed a growing diversity in the Miami scene and a need for more and better spaces to celebrate it. With backgrounds in marketing, design and promotions, the friends pooled their resources to organize and execute the inaugural Wynwood Pride at the Wynwood Marketplace.
The concept was to create a more music and performance-driven atmosphere in the heart of Miami’s booming arts district that appealed to different ages and underserved groups. “The core belief was to be a Pride for everyone,” says Liza Santana, Wynwood Pride’s founding spokesperson.
The core belief was to be a Pride for everyone.
Built entirely from scratch, the three-day festival headlined by Pabllo Vittar, Ivy Queen and Poppy was a resounding success, drawing 50,000 revelers and raising nearly $25,000 in philanthropic contributions—not to mention recognition from local government including City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez and Miami-Dade County Commissioner Audrey M. Edmonson.
When the pandemic hit in 2020, Wynwood Pride pivoted to a 12-hour virtual festival across four Twitch channels, each with its own programming—and raised more than $16,000 for The Bail Project, Contigo Fund, Equal Justice Initiative and others. And in 2021, the festival came roaring back to real life at Oasis Wynwood with massive headliners including Charlie XCX, Honey Dijon and Derrick Carter.
“Like any festival or project this large, infrastructure and financial resources are the most important,” Santana says. “Through the relationship with the local community and partnership with the Wynwood Business Improvement District, we have been blessed to have a lot of local support.”
Wynwood Pride 2022 expanded its footprint even further, taking over Wynwood’s iconic RC Cola Plant with four performance stages headlined by Marina and Azealia Banks, and a more focused mission of supporting Equality Florida, the organization on the front lines of fighting the infamous “Don’t Say Gay” law. But for its fifth anniversary, the team has put together its most ambitious program yet.
Rather than a weekend-long festival, Wynwood Pride 2023 spans World Pride Month with panels, parties and performances going down primarily over the weekends this June. Already, they’ve hosted a night of discussions and live music at Perez Art Museum Miami in collaboration with III Points festival, and a kick-off pool party at the new Arlo Wynwood, this year’s official host hotel.
“Each year, we keep elements that are part of our core programming, like Miss Toto’s Funhouse, and add music and performance events around that with dance parties and programming that supports the local area,” Santana says.
Aside from Miss Toto’s latest iteration of “Funhouse” at the psychedelic kids’ play space FunDimension (June 9), this year’s can’t-miss events include Tinashe and Ty Sunderland headlining the Wynwood Pride Music Festival at Oasis (June 10), the Wynwood Pride Bar Crawl (June 17) and DJ Eli Escobar playing at Floyd (June 23). “These events will be incredibly high-energy and well-attended,” Santana assures.