Restart BC: 2021 Pride

With the official announcement yesterday that we are entering Stage 3 of BC’s Restart Plan, we have had questions from our community and the media about whether we would be having larger events or the parade.

Our team has been working tirelessly since the pandemic started, pivoting at every turn and with every ease or tightening of COVID-19 restrictions.

Like with all events, there was a point when we had to make a decision. In our case, the decision making process included robust community consultation, staff brainstorming sessions, budget review and board discussions, amongst many other factors that were taken into consideration to determine what the best course of action would be and how to plan our 2021 Pride Celebrations.

Our decision was to keep it small with the option of slightly expanding capacity if restrictions allow. Previous easing of restrictions always saw a 50 person limit for events, which we took as a guideline when our team started to organize our Pride events in August 2020.

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While we are extremely excited to hear details about BC’s next phase of the restart plan and know this is the right step towards opening up. This large jump in event capacities came as a surprise to many of us in the events sector given it had previously been mentioned that large-scale events such as parades will not be possible during the summer months. With that said, unfortunately, our event plans were neither intended nor designed to be expandable to the capacities events are now allowed to work with.

Our events team is currently looking at how many additional tickets we are able to release while honouring our promise to keep our events small this year. We will be releasing additional spots for our in-person events including VanPrideFest and Pride Lounges, and our goal is to make these available in mid-July.

If you have already gotten your ticket, please know that COVID safety protocols in accordance with all provincial guidelines will remain in place to ensure a safe environment for all in attendance. This will mean that the events will remain seated, physically distanced, ticket-holder-only events. To view our full safety plan, please visit vancouverpride.ca/covid-safety.

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