Sioux Falls Pride Parade and Festival

Sioux Falls Pride is a volunteer-based nonprofit, formerly the Center for Equality, and South Dakota's largest LGBTQIA+ and Two Spirit organization. Its annual Pride day begins with a parade on Phillips Avenue downtown and continues with a festival at Yankton Trail Park. The organization held the first Pride parade in South Dakota in 2019.

Sioux Falls Pride began in 2000 under the Center for Equality, then the leading LGBTQ nonprofit in the area, which offered services and support and worked with groups such as the ACLU of South Dakota to defeat anti-LGBT bills, including HB 1008, which targeted transgender youth. The first festival drew about 1,000 people, and attendance has since grown to nearly 10,000 visitors from across the region, with more family-friendly events and a Pride Week added along the way.

In June 2020, during the pandemic, the group marked 20 years of Pride with a small hour-long visibility gathering at City Hall, where Councilperson Pat Starr read Mayor Paul TenHaken's Pride Month proclamation and attendees flew Pride flags. Several local businesses now host their own Pride events as well.

The organization's Rainbow Buffalo logo began as a Pride Month decoration made by Thea Ryan at the Outdoor Campus. After a parent complained and she was asked to take it down, Sioux Falls Pride worked with her to adopt it as its logo, later adding transgender, nonbinary and racially inclusive versions. Sales of Rainbow Buffalo merchandise fund the Standing Proud Scholarship, launched in 2019 for LGBTQ+ students pursuing higher education; in 2021 it awarded three $3,000 scholarships.

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.

Sioux Falls Pride Parade and Festival has included parade and festival.

The organizer has not announced dates for 2027 yet. In 2026 it was held June 13, 2026. It usually falls second Saturday in June.