Champaign-Urbana Pride Fest

CU Pride Fest is a week-long fall Pride festival produced by Uniting Pride, the LGBTQ+ resource center for East Central Illinois. The week includes a 5K run and walk, a youth and family party, a living history event with queer elders and a drag show. It ends with the Pride Fest Parade and Fair in downtown Urbana.

Uniting Pride's fall festival week mixes free and ticketed events across Champaign-Urbana. It opens with the annual 5K run and walk at Crystal Lake Park, an all-ages morning event tied to 41 years of work on health equity and ending HIV/AIDS in East Central Illinois.

Free events through the week have included a s'mores social with the Urbana Park District at Crestview Park, an open house at Uniting Pride's new office, a community art project at The Royer House where each participant makes a small image that becomes part of a larger piece, and the Living History event at the Urbana Free Library, where LGBTQ+ elders share their stories at stations around the room. The University of Illinois Library and the Illinois Pride Alumni Network also co-present an LGBTQ History Month webinar.

The ticketed Drag Extravaganza pairs a Drag Race headliner, Jorgeous in 2026, with local performers such as Spank Knightly, Ceduxion Carrington, Daéshaun Carrington and Herra Winn. General admission has been $25, and $50 VIP seats include a photographed meet and greet. Vendors and parade entries register in advance for the closing parade and fair.

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.

Champaign-Urbana Pride Fest has included parade, festival, 5k, youth events and drag.

The next edition is October 11-17, 2026. It usually falls a week in mid-October, ending with the parade and fair on Saturday.