Bemidji Pride

Bemidji Pride is an annual festival for the LGBTQIA2S+ community of Bemidji and the surrounding area, held at the Rail River Folk School. The 2026 schedule ran over three days and included drag shows and the sixth annual Family Pride Festival with live music, food and vendors.

Bemidji Pride began in 2021 as a volunteer-led effort and is now a 501(c)(3) nonprofit based in northern Minnesota. It sponsors and produces events meant to support 2SLGBTQIA+ youth and adults, educate the wider community, and work toward equity in Bemidji, Beltrami County and the Red Lake, Leech Lake and White Earth reservations. Its vision puts particular weight on BIPOC and trans people who are often left out of Pride, and the organization acknowledges that it gathers on the ancestral lands of the Ojibwe, or Anishinaabe, people.

Pride programming spans several kinds of events. Recent lineups included an Enchanted Garden themed queeraoke night with the Pride Support Network, a family-friendly show with Transcendence Cabaret and local performers, an interactive performance by Patrick Scully, and Divas after Dark, a drag show featuring Zon Legacy Phoenix followed by dancing.

The group keeps a calendar of 2SLGBTQIA+ friendly events in the area and accepts submissions from other organizers. Supporters have included Harmony Co-op, Headwaters Unitarian Universalist Fellowship, KAXE/KBXE, MPR and the Indigenous Environmental Network.

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.

Bemidji Pride has included festival, drag shows, live music and vendors.

The organizer has not announced dates for 2027 yet. In 2026 it was held August 27-29, 2026. It usually falls late August.