Kansas City, MI Office of Culture and Creative Services, 21 May 2019

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From YouTube: NTDF supports Kansas City PrideFest

Description

Learn about upcoming events supported by the Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund of the Office of Culture and Creative Services.

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Kansas City pride Fest is coming up, May 31st through June, 2nd here at Berkley, Riverfront Park and the event is supported by the neighborhood Tourist Development Fund. This year's theme is diversity, not division and here, to tell us about the story behind the theme and the history of pride. Fest is Bill sobota executive director bill. Thank you for having us out here on this beautiful day. Isn't.

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It a gorgeous day it.

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Keeping my fingers crossed this could be like this during the best yeah.

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So you've been involved with pride festival for a number of years. Yes,.

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And when did it start? Oh.

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Gosh it started about 42 years ago. You know this is a 50th anniversary of Stonewall and.

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After that, these small picnics and get-togethers started to take place across the country and, as the times have changed and as the opportunities have grown for the LGBT community, they've now turned into major celebrations and.

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What was the story behind the theme of this year? Well,.

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You know and because it is the 50th anniversary of Stonewall, we really feel it's important important to celebrate diversity and not division. We work better as a community when we have a diverse community and we celebrate everybody that contributes to the diversity of our city and.

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You've been around for 42 years, so you've seen the evolution and the growth. How many people are you expecting this year? Oh.

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Gosh, we don't know, but it's gonna be well over 40,000 people this year. Oh.

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Last year was around 30.

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34 35 pounds.

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Okay, so if no one's ever been to pride fest, what can you expect as a newcomer? Oh.

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My gosh you're gonna have such a wonderful time. We have a carnival ten rides. We have a Children's Zone, so you know the festival is a family-friendly event.

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We are, we have an exhibit area marketplace and we have approximately over a hundred and fifty exhibitors that are participating this year, and then we have a main stage with a continuous entertainment going on all three days. This year we have a Grammy Award winner Maya, who did a song with Christina Aguilera and pink in the movie Moulin Rouge, the lady Lady Marmalade. She will be our headliner on Saturday night with a live band and.

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Will be performing on Sunday and she won a Grammy for her song that she did with chainsmokers a couple years ago called. Don't let me down so she's got three hits out on the top 40 list right now, so we're a standing to have her with a live band. All live bands this year, so you won't want to miss the entertainment here.

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And with all of the attendees are a lot of them coming from out of town, are they more local? Well,.

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We, you know, we get a combination of both. Obviously a Kansas City has a huge LGBT population, but we're fortunate because we draw regionally about from from the five state region. So we have a lot of people that have been booking hotel rooms that are planning to come to Kansas City, to attend the festival and and we're now even getting a reputation across the country for doing a very unique kind of festival. So I know this.

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One group was telling me that they have a group of friends coming in from Phoenix to join at kind of kids in Pride Festival. So that's happening a lot. We have a lot of people coming in from Chicago and.

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Like to spend the weekend in Kansas City, what is there not to like about Kansas City, so.

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People want to find out more about the entertainment schedule or how to participate as a volunteer where's the best place to go I.

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Got that is a good question: go to Kansas City pride, fest, Baltimore and the schedule is listed on there. There's a tab to register to volunteer. We need volunteers, because this is one of the largest Pride festivals in the country. So we need a lot to help and if you volunteer you're, giving back to the community and you'll get a really cool t-shirt on top of that. So we we need everybody down here to celebrate with us for the weekend perfect.

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Well, thank you so much for having us here in this beautiful day at Riverfront Park. Oh.

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Thank you for having me the.

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Neighborhood Tourist Development Fund supports local nonprofits that bring cultural, social, educational and recreational activities to our area.

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To learn about additional upcoming events, visit KCMO gov, slash in TDF.