Pride week provides an opportunity for everyone to engage with and celebrate the spirit of LGBTQ+ arts, culture and community. Like Groundwerk events serve as a gathering place for music nerds to form community, LGBTQ+ events serve as hubs for queer communities to form and grow. To an outsider, much of this may all just seem like nightlife, but if you are a part of any of the vibrant sub culture communities that exist in Vancouver, then you know that our events are about much more than entertainment.

While you're out taking in the festivities this week, remember why we do this in the first place. I am extremely thankful to be surrounded by friends, family and a city that accepts me for the gay man that I am. To this day however, both the process of coming out and living openly as LGBTQ+ still brings vast and varied challenges. Being a white gay man from a liberal family doesn't bring about as many challenges as it used to, but there is a huge diversity of LGBTQ+ identities with many different experiences.

In a city where queer specific spaces seem to be dwindling, it is important that we continue to support and celebrate LGBTQ+ culture. As you enjoy the events of Pride, remember that this week is about advancing LGBTQ+ liberation. Try to take this time to connect with different people within the LGBTQ+ community, hear their stories and celebrate their vibrant and diverse identities.

Events are the catalyst, you are the community. Get out and participate this week in the plethora of Pride celebrations happening from East to West in our fine city.

Pride Events

Click the images to link to Facebook events.

Wednesday July 27

A dance party for queer folks + queer allies

The dynamic duo Carlotta Gurl & Mina Mercury, will be joined by DJ Del Stamp to host Pride Bingo for Life - arguably one of the most popular and outrageous community events during Pride Week. The queens will start pulling balls at 8pm for a fun evening of incredible prizes, cheap drinks, snappy drag queen humour. $10 donations are accepted to play with 100% of proceeds benefiting the Vancouver Friends for Life Society.

Vancouver Friends for Life Society is a Non-Profit Organization, which enhances the wellness of individuals living with very serious illnesses, such as by providing complementary and alternative health and support services.

Thursday July 28

TRANSPRIDE ARTIST SHOWCASE AT VANCOUVER ART & LEISURE

Trans Pride is organized by trans artists and cultural curators with the goal of highlighting the important contributions of trans people in the arts, LGBTQ culture, dance music, and our larger communities. This is a celebration organized by trans artists and everyone is welcome to join.

Friday July 29

Vancouver's longest-running queer dance party & drag show brings you an electric 2-room escapade at your favourite bonafide east side gay bar, the Cobalt/Boxcar! Join your friendly neighbourhood gender deviants & patriarchy smashers for another unforgettable Pride experience! This year we're especially inspired to be as rebellious as fucking possible! Let queer love shine!

A Queer Dancehall Experience created to counteract the current Homophobic nature of the Dancehall scene.

PRIDE IS FOR EVERYONE AT VANCOUVER ART & LEISURE

Love and dance floors are not exclusive. Welcome in Vancouver Pride 2016 with a pride party for Everyone, Everybody, and Every body. Featuring three stages of sound, specially curated rooms, local artists, installations, play spaces, kink, fetish, and hours of nonstop dance! Dress to the high heavens or leave your clothes at home, this is a private space and you can take it to any level of your own desire, but most importantly this is a SAFE space for ALL walks of life.

Saturday July 30

VANCOUVER DYKE MARCH & FESTIVAL AT MCSPADDEN PARK

Vancouver’s 13th Annual Dyke March & Festival! Beginning in McSpadden Park at 11 AM with some pre-March festivities and a community art project. Then, led by our Grand Marshal Black Lives Matter - Vancouver, BC, the March will leave McSpadden Park at 12 PM (noon) and we will make our way down Commercial Drive to end at Grandview Park for the Festival. The Festival will take place from 1 to 5 PM, and involve performances from various artists, feature queer-friendly vendors, and create a space to gather with friends, family, and the community.

TOMBOY PRIDE PARTY + QUEER BURLESQUE AT THE ASTORIA

TOMBOY PRIDE is back once again and is here to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community in all it's beautiful glory in the only way we feel is appropriate: RAUNCHY EAST VAN REALNESS. We welcome all to join us for a night of uncensored debauchery at the legendary Astoria feat. DJs, burlesque babes, best friends, beers, boobs, dance offs, pool, tacos, contests and most importantly in light of recent events... ♥ ALL THE PRIDE ♥

DENIM VEST PRESENTS SWEET RESISTANCE AT RED GATE

Come out and get your sweaty dance on at Denim Vest Presents: Sweet Resistance on July 30th! Because, queer fam, if there’s ever been a time to say, “dance parties as a form of resistance”, it’s now. Let’s bring our sweet resistance and dance it out together.

LICKCLUB PRESENTS QUEER PRIDE AT HINDENBURG

One year ago Vancouver's legendary Queer Bar, Lick Club, reunited to revive a vibe that could never be forgotten. The community showed up and demanded a monthly tribute to continually celebrate our ever-evolving scene. The QUEER FAM JAM has emerged and is ready to present to you
QUEER PRIDE 2016.

To represent our diverse and inclusive crowd, we have searched the globe to bring you an eclectic mix of queer talent. With 3 levels, 2 rooms and 8 DJs we got the whole spectrum representing.

Sunday July 31

Celebrate Pride in one of Vancouver's most beautiful waterfront parks! Browse through over one hundred exhibitors in our Pride Market, including local artisans, supporters, and community organizations. A variety of bands, drag performers and speakers will be featured on the main stage, with DJs spinning in the beer garden throughout the day.

The fine folks of Queers & Beers and Man Up are bringing you just the chill vibe you’re looking for mid-marathon-weekend, where you can recharge your batteries before the last Pride hurrah of Sunday night partying!

Escape the mayhem of downtown and join us for some cold beers and warm sun in our very own East Van beer garden, our veritable home away from home (#campcobalt), The Boxcar!
And Cobalt parking lot, of course!

This Pride Sunday, come cool ofF at the ICE-T Pride Patio Party!

HOT BEATS. COOL DRINKS.

Fierceness* Faggotry & F*ckery !

4pm-10pm: Patio party & 10pm-2am Dance party in the Tabu

LOST GIRLS BURLESQUE PRESENTS PRIDE PLEASE -O- RAMA AT STUDIO RECORDS

VERY special edition of the the Lost Girls in solidarity and celebration with the LGBTQ+ community!
Hot off their return from touring BC's interior, the Lost Girls are celebrating Pride by showcasing talented performers of the LGBTQ+ scene from Vancouver and abroad in support of the Foundation of Hope. $2 from every ticket sale will be donated to this wonderful charity. See below for more details.

BACKDOOR PRIDE EDITION is all about location location location. The hot and sweaty pop-up party that reclaims unconventional spaces into once-in-a-lifetime queer dance floors is BACK! For Backdoor, turning abandoned warehouses into discotheques, automotive repair shops into after-hours, and storage lockers into bathhouses is all par for the course. This is a hot, sweaty and sexy, pop-up party where anything goes and everyone is welcome… boys, girls, gays, straights, daddies and grannies - leave your labels at the back door and get your derrier ready for a night of celebration, cause this is BIGGER, LONGER and DEEPER than ever before!

Put on your jock, take off your shirts and come get HOT and DELICIOUS with us July 31st as we go GAY ALL THE WAY for BACKDOOR Pride Edition! Vancouver's premier out of the village gay event will be hosting some major vibes in a truly incredible and rare warehouse venue that will make u gag! This promises to be the sexiest party EVER with custom sexual spaces for you horny bitches, kinky give-aways, erotic performances, and lots of HOT DTF babes! You will loose your clothes for this one boys and girls cause its gonna get HOT HOT HOT! Happy Pride bitchezz

The perfect dismissal, "Bye Felicia!" is a goodbye given to any unwanted, irritating, or disliked person, place or thing.

Now get your #PrideON and say BYE FELICIA! to all the negativity in your life and come dance to a night of:

NU-DISCO // ANYTHiNG GOeS! // RnB REMIXES // HOUSE

Showcasing women in House + Techno

Call the hotline day of for location ☏ (604-367-1794)

Also of note...

The 11‐day festival, now in its 28th year, is the largest queer arts event in Western Canada and the second‐largest film festival in Vancouver. Last year's event drew over 12,000 fans and featured three world premieres, two Canadian premieres, and seven features as well as two shorts programs dedicated to Canadian film, for a total of 33 Canadian films overall, which was the largest number of Canadian features in the history of the festival.

"Annually, we curate from an incredible selection of queer cinema ‐ driving our conversations deeper and connecting queer arts and transformative change. This year, we're investigating queer histories and key 'troublemakers' who've endured great hardships while paving the way for change."
‐ Shana Myara, Artistic Director

Did we miss something? Email groundwerkvancouver@gmail.com to let us know!

The Groundwerk Guide to Pride