Kalamazoo Pride

Kalamazoo Pride is a two-day ticketed festival at Arcadia Creek Festival Place in downtown Kalamazoo, produced by OutFront Kalamazoo. It includes the Ms, Mx, and Mr Kalamazoo Pride Pageant on Friday, multiple stages of LGBTQ+ performers, and headline music acts on Saturday night. Pay-what-you-can and pay-it-forward ticket options are offered.

Kalamazoo Pride is produced by OutFront Kalamazoo, which was founded in 1987 as the Kalamazoo Gay Lesbian Resource Center to serve LGBTQIA+ people in Kalamazoo County and nearby areas. It began with a lesbian and gay resource phone line and a two-page newsletter. The organization opened its first office in the CARES building in 1997, hired its first full-time staff member, Sharon Roepke, in 1999, and was honored by the Triangle Foundation in 2005.

The first Kalamazoo Pride was held at Arcadia Creek Festival Place in 2008. In 2017 the group took the name OutFront Kalamazoo and moved to South Rose Street downtown, and in 2025 it moved into its first owned building, on South Westnedge Avenue in the Vine neighborhood. The name reflects its aim of being honest, visible and leading.

OutFront Kalamazoo works year-round to advance social justice, build coalitions and change minds so that people can live free from discrimination based on gender identity or sexual orientation. It offers a range of programs and services and a welcoming place for people to be seen and heard.

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.

Kalamazoo Pride has included festival and pageant.

Organizers reported 20,000 to 25,000 (organizer's stated average for recent years) people in 2026.

The organizer has not announced dates for 2027 yet. In 2026 it was held June 5-6, 2026. It usually falls first weekend of June (Friday and Saturday).