Twin Cities Pride Festival

The Twin Cities Pride Festival has some of the best entertainment of the summer, with a headline concert showcasing local bands Sick of Sarah and Sunshine Behavior, and national musicians En Vogue and Deborah Cox. Smaller stages will host everything from transvoice classical singing to drag contests to Aztec dancing, all with the backdrop of beautiful Loring Pond. Pride also boasts the biggest parade in Minneapolis. In past years, rugby teams, politicians and political groups, drag kings and queens, stilt walkers, bagpipers, the Gay Men's Chorus, nudists, and burlesque revues joined together to wind their way down Hennepin Avenue to the cheers of over 100,000 onlookers. The usual festival fare will be available to the parched and starved: Fresh-squeezed lemonade, funnel cakes, hot dogs, hamburgers, and for us boozehounds, a $5 beer garden. If moving to California to tie the knot isn't an option, show up on Sunday with your partner to participate in a mass commitment ceremony that hopefully, in future years, will hold legal weight. The biggest attraction at Pride, though, isn't in the schedule. It's hanging out at a weekend-long festival with folks who couldn't care less which stripe of the rainbow flag you call your own. Go to www.tcpride.org for complete schedule.
Sat., June 28, 10 a.m.-10 p.m.; Sun., June 29, 10 a.m.-6 p.m., 2008