When the first Akron Pride Festival was held at Hardesty Park in 2017, about 6,000 people showed up, no small feat for a new festival.
Now in its 10th year, festival organizers expect 50,000 people to attend Saturday’s celebration.
“It’s very different than any other Pride, but Akron is very different than any other city,” said Akron Pride Festival co-chair Julie Beckert. “Even the people that visit here on that day say, ‘There’s not a Pride like Akron’s Pride,’ and we’re very proud of that.”
The festivities start Friday with the 2026 Akron Pride Festival 5K downtown. Also on Friday, singer Kristine W will perform a free concert at Lock 3. On Saturday morning, the festival’s Equity March will step off from the former Spaghetti Warehouse and proceed downtown. Afterward, the area will be transformed into festival grounds with vendors, performances, activities for kids and more.
Set to headline Saturday’s festivities is singer Todrick Hall. Akron-born drag queen Discord Addams, who competed on the 18th season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” will also perform.
For Beckert, Akron Pride’s size — it takes up about three city blocks, she said — is what makes it stand out from other regional celebrations.
“There’s a more hometown feel to ours,” Beckert said. “We don’t have a huge parade. We just have an equity march, and when I say ‘just,’ I mean we want people marching for equity. Cars and floats are great, but it’s about holding hands and walking down the street and knowing that you have an ally beside you.”
Akron Pride ‘last hurrah’ of summer
Pride celebrations are traditionally held in June to coincide with the anniversary of the Stonewall riots on June 28, 1969. On that day, demonstrations and riots broke out after police raided the Stonewall Inn, a gay bar in New York City’s Greenwich Village. It was a watershed moment for LGBTQ+ liberation in the United States. On the one-year anniversary of the riots, the first gay pride marches were held across the country to commemorate the day.
Akron’s pride roots go back to the Gay Games, which were held in Cleveland in August 2014. That year, Akron held Flair Fest to coincide with the games. Flair Fest was held again the following year. After that, organizers decided to switch to organizing Akron Pride but decided to keep the festival in August.
With its August date, Akron Pride doesn’t risk competing with festivals in larger markets. Pride festivals in Cleveland, Cincinnati, Columbus and Pittsburgh all take place in June.
Akron Pride draws visitors from Stark and Cuyahoga counties as well as from Pittsburgh and Columbus, said co-chair Brian Lamoda-Genet.
“It’s the last hurrah for summer,” Lamoda-Genet said.
Beckert added, “There’s only four Saturdays or five Saturdays in June. Why do we make somebody choose between DC or Toronto or Cleveland or us? Pride is all year long, so it doesn’t make any difference what time of year it is or what time of summer.”
Akron Pride art designed by native Jeffrey Fulvimari
The artwork for Akron Pride’s 10th anniversary features bright, neon rainbows, small blimps that read “Ten Years” and a character named Dorothy who has an Afro, large eyelashes and a pink heart on her cheek.
The artwork is the creation of artist and Akron native Jeffrey Fulvimari. Designing the art for his hometown’s pride festival marks a full-circle moment for Fulvimari.
As a kid growing up in Akron in the ’70s, Fulvimari didn’t feel like he belonged. An artsy, music-obsessed teen, he described his hometown as “a meaner place” back then. And like many American cities during that time, it was not a place where sexuality was talked about openly.
“When I was young, I wasn’t even completely aware of the fact that I was gay,” Fulvimari said.
When Fulvimari was in high school, an older student died by suicide. Although it was never confirmed, Fulvimari said he and others suspected the student was gay and struggling with his sexuality.
“At the time, I just remember internalizing that and feeling like, the choice is to live here and hide, move or commit suicide,” he said.
So in 1980, after graduating from North High School, Fulvimari left.
First, to attend art school in Cleveland. Then, he transferred to a school in New York, where he would spend the next several decades, first in the East Village in Manhattan and then later in Woodstock. He became a well-known and well-traveled artist.
He contributed to Interview magazine, illustrated Madonna’s children’s book series and worked with brands from Nickelodeon and MTV to Gap and Louis Vuitton. He even won a Grammy for his work designing the CD packaging of “The Complete Ella Fitzgerald Song Books.”
‘I belong here now’
In 2025, Fulvimari moved back to Akron, settling in Highland Square. He followed his sister, who also returned home. Today, he and all of his siblings are back in their hometown. The city he returned to was nothing like the one he left.
“There’s sushi everywhere,” he said laughing.
Besides the dining, he’s also enjoying the walkability of his neighborhood and the abundant local parks.
“I love it,” he said. “It’s so funny because my whole life I thought I hated it here, and coming back, it’s a completely different place than when I left in 1980.”
He continued, “Being gay, it’s like not a problem here anymore. It was definitely a problem when I was young, and now you see rainbow flags all over the place, and it’s not even like a big deal. I just feel like I belong here now.”
That story of finding community, finding a home is a throughline of Akron Pride.
“This is our home, our safe space,” Lamoda-Genet said. “It never used to be like that when Jeffrey was here. But now, I mean, times have changed so much, and it’s beautiful that we can have this celebration in our home, and that Jeffrey can come back home and see what we’ve helped do for him and the community.”
