Pride Orange City returning Oct. 14-15 | News | nwestiowa.com – nwestiowa.com
ORANGE CITY—Two days of affirmation for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer people are slated for next weekend in Orange City.
Pride Orange City’s sixth annual festival will take place Friday-Saturday, Oct. 14-15, at the Prairie Winds Event Center.
“We’re just building on it with the community, keeping it simple and doing what we do best: offer resources and celebrate the community with drag culture,” said Mike Goll, one of Pride Orange City’s founding members and a planning committee member.
“This year, we’re all about affirmation, so that’s just going to be the big message.”
The weekend’s festivities will start at 7 p.m. Friday with a “Gaymer Night.” Video games and board games will be set up for attendees to play while hanging out and getting to know each other.
David Klennert, another Pride Orange City founder and board of directors’ member, described the event as “a pre-Pride hangout” and said it will be an informal time.
An hourlong yoga session will start at 9 a.m. Saturday, followed by an information and resources fair 11 a.m.-2 p.m.
“We’ve got several groups coming from the area and the state, just to provide different resources that are out there for the queer community to make sure people know there are people out there that support and celebrate them,” Klennert said.
Saturday evening will see the return of back-to-back drag shows featuring performers from N’West Iowa and elsewhere in the state. Some of the drag entertainers also will travel from Lincoln, NE, Omaha, NE, and Sioux Falls, SD.
The early show is set for 5:30 p.m. and will run for about an hour. Klennert said the first show will be “a condensed version” of the second show, which will last two to three hours.
Although the Pride organization is based in the Sioux County seat community, Goll said the group serves as a regional hub for the LGBTQ community in and around N’West Iowa.
“It’s great to see people come from all over the place, whether Orange City has touched their lives in the past through college, through living here, through family,” Goll said.
“It’s sweet to see people come back and Pride be the reason for that. Hopefully, that continues and hopefully it grows.”