Austin MN Pride Festival

Austin, MN Pride is a volunteer-run LGBTQIA2S+ nonprofit in Mower County that holds a free fall Pride festival. The all-ages festival takes place at Bandshell Community Park in Austin. The group also runs year-round events such as library storytimes and queer history talks.

Austin is the seat of Mower County, a working city of about 26,000 in southern Minnesota, and its Pride has been built more than once. The first visible presence was a Pride pavilion at the 4th Avenue Fest. The city's Human Rights Commission then hosted a first community Pride at the Cedar River Farmers Market, and a second year moved downtown to the Justice Center Pavilion before the festival went dark.

A volunteer crew revived it at Bandshell Community Park around the idea of putting the unity back in community, and the comeback drew more than 70 booths, two stages and the largest crowd yet. The group has since become a registered 501(c)(3) with about 30 organizers, and it fills the rest of the year with LGBTea and Coffee hours, all-ages karaoke and a queer book club.

The festival day centers on the Bandshell stage, with drag, live music and speeches from open to close. The organizers publish detailed access information: ADA restrooms and accessible parking near the West Entrance, a quiet zone with a sensory tent in the Veterans Pavilion, and a family area there with child and adult changing tables and a space for chest feeding. They have also been working to bring ASL interpreters to stage performances.

Pride events celebrate LGBTQ+ people and mark the Stonewall uprising of June 1969. Most combine a parade or march with a festival of performers, community groups, vendors and food.

Austin MN Pride Festival has included festival.

Austin MN Pride Festival was first held in 2022.

The next edition is October 10, 2026. It usually falls around National Coming Out Day in October.