KC Pride Festival 2013? Yes, it’s still on
In 1984, Kansas City’s Gay Pride Festival was little more than a halfhearted little carnival set up in the parking lot behind the since-razed Dover Fox saloon, at 43rd Street and Main. Over the past 29 years, the event has gotten much bigger, much grander – with the occasional financial scandal here and there.
This year, after a 2012 turn in the Power & Light District, the Gay Pride Festival is “scaling down, going back to basics,” says the festival’s chairman, Mason Hakes. Instead of a lavishly mounted production featuring nationally known performers, this year’s Pride Festival returns to Westport on May 31 and June 1 and has booked only local performers, organized by Kansas City drag queen Moltyn Decadence.
It could be a long, long show: “NO ONE will be turned away that wants to showcase their talents,” writes Ms. Decadence on the Facebook page for the Kansas City Diversity Coalition, the new organization sponsoring the event.
