Chicago Pride Parade organizers announced April 22 that their planned June 28 event would be postponed, following similar announcements for parades in New York City and San Francisco, as the community reels from the COVID-19 crisis.
[See June 11 update at www.windycitymediagroup.com/lgbt/Chicago-Pride-Parade-officially-cancelled/68705.html .]
In a statement that day, Parade Coordinator Tim Frye said, "We have always felt that safety is the first priority for our participants in the parade; the hundreds of thousands of spectators; as well as the city agencies and independent contractors that work so hard to make the parade a success every year."
A spate of other local summertime events, among them Pride Fest, which is organized by Northalsted Business Alliance, and Blues Fest, have also announced their postponement or cancellation. Governor JB Pritzker had already signaled that he'd be discouraging large-scale gatherings this summer.
The Chicago Pride Parade is the third largest in the country, behind New York City and San Francisco's.
Organizer Tim Frye told Windy City Times, "It was a decision I hated to make, but I didn't see any other way."
Frye emphasized that he and the parade committee wanted to "leave the door open" for a 2020 event, perhaps for late summer or the fall, but a concrete timeline was an impossibility at this point. Pride Fest organizers announced April 22 that their event would be shifted to Labor Day weekend.
Frye, who took over the role as principal coordinator after the passing of his husband Richard Pfeiffer in 2019, said that he had already received about 85 entry forms, and that he'd been trying to determine how the parade could go on even as the community was subject to health mandates such as social-distancing.
"We knew what we needed, and had been keeping in touch with the City," he added.
But while meeting with fellow organizers recently, Frye asked whether they would feel safe were the parade to proceed as planned. Most answered that they would not.
"That said it all," Frye recalled, adding that he had been watching for San Francisco and New York City's decisions as well.
The parade organizers frequently receive messages along with the entry forms wherein participants frequently transmit their excitement over the upcoming event, Frye said. In the past, he admitted, he would not think much about processing those entries until he saw one such message, when an applicant said that the Parade was, for them, "the light at the end of the tunnel."
As such, Frye knows how much the decision means for the LGBT community.
"I was holding out as long as I could," he said.