Albany Pride have held an annual Pride Festival since 2016, starting off with a couple of events over a weekend. Since then, the number of attendees and the number of events, and the diversity of them, has grown significantly!

As well as being an event of visibility and celebration for our local LGBTQIA+ community, we have also committed to growing the Albany Pride Festival into a major tourist event for the region, and to showcase Albany’s natural beauty and many attractions as a holiday destination – and as a place you might want to live!

Originally taking place in November to coincide with the Pride Festival in Perth, since 2021 the Albany Pride Festival has taken place in February, when the weather is usually at its best in Albany, and to allow us to bring more theatre, arts and entertainment events to Albany, following on from the Perth Fringe Festival period.

A growing focus and priority of the Albany Pride Festival is to bring in more sports, fitness and wellbeing events into our annual lineup, to encourage the health of our LGBTQIA+ community and encourage their participation – particularly at a time when LGBTQIA+ participation in sports, particularly for the Trans and Intersex community – is under increasing scrutiny and debate in the media.

Albany Pride have also been making accessibility an expanding priority for our Festival, to ensure that everybody in our community and everybody that visits are able to actively participate in our events without barriers. We acknowledge this is very much a work in progress, but it is one that we continue to address and factor into all aspects of planning for the festival. Unfortunately, the additional challenges this can sometimes present can come at a significant (but worthwhile) cost – which is why the Albany Pride Festival ensures that a significant proportion of our sponsorship goes directly to addressing accessibility needs.

Albany Pride continues to work in conjuction with other community organisations and Pride groups to ensure that the Albany Pride Festival is as diverse, accessible and inclusive as possible. After all, Pride is a time of celebration for all Queer people.

Albany/Kinjarling is home to a wonderful and thriving Queer community, and the Albany Pride Festival gives our local residents a chance to celebrate and be visible, and to show visitors just how great our local LGBTQIA+ community is.