Mid-Missouri PrideFest will return this weekend for its annual celebration of love and belonging in the North Village Arts District.
The street fair celebrating the LGBTQ+ community will occupy the arts district from noon to 6 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, with several drag and musical performances, including Lady Camden and Briar Blush of RuPaul’s Drag Race, inside Rose Music Hall from 4 to 10 p.m. Sunday festivities will start with an 11 a.m. parade on Broadway from Ninth to Fifth streets.
The festival is free, though a $10 donation is suggested for the Lady Camden and Briar Blush drag shows, as collected funds will go toward paying the two performers.
PrideFest is hosting fewer vendors this year as construction for the North Village Park continues, impeding the festival’s typical footprint. Festival-goers will see 120 vendors this year, about 100 less than previous years.
Janet Davis, president of Mid-Missouri PrideFest, expects about 8,000 visitors this year due to the change. The festival normally brings in around 10,000 across mid-Missouri, she said.
“Having 120-plus less vendors means 120 less families, which means typically there are two people to four people in every booth, plus all of their families come to see them,” Davis said.
Still, there will be no shortage of variety.
The vendor lineup includes various local business and associations. The Central States Arabian Horse Association horses will top off the weekend on Sunday from noon to 2 p.m.
PrideFest will have 13 food vendors. An array of local artisans and resources will crowd Park, St. James and Orr streets: Columbia nonprofit Rock the Community, the Daniel Boone Regional Library, Boone County Family Resources and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention among them.
September is National Suicide Prevention Month. Davis said PrideFest incorporates support resources like the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention because “resources are always there” for those who need them, “but folks aren’t always gonna know where to find them.”
About 45% of LGBTQ+ young people who wanted mental health care in 2025 were unable to get it, according to a survey from The Trevor Project, a nonprofit suicide and crisis prevention organization for LGBTQ+ young people. PrideFest serves as a “hub” for those across mid-Missouri to find what they need all in one place and remind them of the community behind them, Davis said.
“My hope is that… people will see that there is hope, that there is hope available,” said Lauren Ross, board and advocacy chair for the Missouri chapter of the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. “There are people there to support them.”
Davis said providing resources for the community is a role the festival plays each year.
“We pull all of these things together to remind anyone and everyone that you are safe here, that you are enough, that you are welcome and that nothing is so bad that we can’t get through it together,” Davis said. “You just need the right resources in place.”
PrideFest is a “beautiful labor of love” for volunteers like Davis, and it “feels like home” for community members like Audra Sergel, artistic director of The Quorus, Columbia’s LGBTQ+ choir. PrideFest is where “all these different facets of the queer community come together,” Sergel said.
“I think it’s amazing that we have businesses and we have churches and we have artisans and we, you know, there’s just all of these people gathered to celebrate, to celebrate love and the freedom to love,” Sergel said.
The Quorus will celebrate its 10th anniversary on Friday ahead of the event.
“We plan our event every year around the fact, the knowledge, that there are so many people out here who are fighting these battles and pushing and building for our rights and that sort of thing,” Davis said. “And we give them all this opportunity to take a breath, come to our event, breathe in the fresh air, experience the joy, build and rejuvenate themselves to continue the fight for the next year.”
