June is Pride Month! It’s a time of the year to celebrate the LGBTQIA2S+ community and to learn how we can work together to continue to create an inclusive world for everyone. Downtown Victoria is proud to be a welcoming community where we respect each other and encourage everyone to be true to themselves. Our businesses are inclusive and diverse, according to our annual report, 17.6% of downtown business owners identify as LGBTQ2S+ or gender diverse. If you are looking for fun ways to celebrate pride, this is the guide for you!

To help you participate in celebrating and supporting the community, we also share some great resources associated with Pride. Let’s celebrate inclusivity and diversity every single day!

Don’t miss these amazing Pride events!

Blossom Your Pride!

June 25, 10 a.m. – 1 p.m. | Yates Street Community Garden | Website.

The Victoria Downtown Residents Association and the Yates Street Community Garden invite you to celebrate Pride!
Drop by the garden on Saturday, June 25th between 10 am and 2 pm to make your own FREE prideful bouquet of flowers, tour the garden, and enjoy a Pride-themed tasty treat.
Bring your most prideful self and snap a picture in the garden. They have a limited supply of flowers, so arrive early to avoid missing out!

Victoria Pride Parade

June 26, 11 a.m. | Starts from Johnson Street Bridge | Website

Let your Pride flags fly over the Johnson Street Bridge during the biggest and most anticipated parade of the year. The new parade route takes marchers east, then south onto Wharf Street providing scenic water views before turning onto Government, Belleville and Menzies Streets. The colourful march, with as many as 140 entries and 40,000+ spectators, will envelop the downtown Inner Harbour. Opening ceremonies with Indigenous, First Nations and Two-Spirit Guests of Honour. It’s time to come out and show the Pride In You!

Pride Lunch on the Lawn at Fairmont Empress!

June 26, Multiple Times | Fairmont Empress Hotel | Website

Show your pride in style as you celebrate the Victoria Pride Parade with VIP Seating at Pride Lunch on the Lawn. It’s the ultimate al fresco dining experience on the hotel’s iconic front lawns, with stunning views of the Inner Harbour. Reserve your very own harbour-facing picnic spot complete with blankets, pillows, and a basket brimming with delicious upscale food. Elevate your experience with a bottle of Veuve Clicquot champagne or cocktails from our full Q Bar menu. The hotel also celebrates Pride Month with pride-feature cocktails and desserts. For each feature dessert or cocktail purchased this month,  they will be donating $1 to the Victoria Pride Society.

Pride Sunday Parade After Party

June 26, 8 p.m. – June 27, 2 a.m. | Paparazzi Nightclub | Website

After the pride festival, head to Paparazzi for the usual mayhem!
Shelita Cox and special guest from Vancouver Hazel join will be on the spotlight stage!
DJ RonnyB live on decks till 2am!

Proud and Loud!: A Pride Celebration

June 27, 7 p.m. – June 28, 1 a.m. | Victoria Event Centre | Website

The House of Dubét and the Victoria Event Centre present a double feature Pride event: Proud and LOUD! Hosted by queer-adjacent comedian Emily Woods, featuring local drag superstars Vivian Vanderpuss and Eddilicious and accompanied by members of the House of Dubét, this show is themed as LOUD AND COLOURFUL AS POSSIBLE. Come dressed in your own monochromatic look and build a giant rainbow on the dancefloor! Arrive early to witness some of Victoria’s brightest expressions of gender, or come late and help us create the sweatiest rainbow in history as we FINALLY celebrate and unleash all of our pent-up PRIDE.

Pride In The Word

July 2, 7 – 9:30 p.m. | Victoria Conference Centre | Website

Pride In The Word is hosted by its renowned co-founder, Billeh Nickerson. The largest Pride literary event in Canada features six writers bringing an intersectional lens to our 2SLGBTQIA+ communities with words and performance.

Featuring: Tawahum Bige, who is Lutselk’e Dene and Plains Cree and Two-Spirit, reading from his new collection, Cut to Fortress; local writers, Robin Stevenson, who will read from her new picture book, Pride Puppy, as well as Ali Blythe author of two critically acclaimed books exploring trans-poetics; Danny Ramadan, a Syrian-Canadian author, public speaker and advocate for LGBTQ+ refugees, reading from his forthcoming novel, The Foghorn Echoes (2022) Penguin Random House; and Isabella Wang, who will read from her debut collection of poems, Pebble Swing, short-listed for the 2022 BC and Yukon Book Prizes and nominated for the Livesay prize.

Pride is a great time to visit downtown’s LGBTQIA2s+ lounges, restaurants, and bars! We are pretty sure once you visit, you will keep coming back!

Friends of Dorothy

537 Johnson St | Website

Voted Tasting Victoria’s Best New Restaurant 2022, Friends of Dorothy is Vancouver Island’s premier LGBT2Q+ restaurant. Visit this family-friendly queer-owned establishment for breakfast, brunch & dinner with bright walls, modern tastes, live entertainment, and campy excellence. To celebrate Pride Week, there is no cover fee for events at Dorothy. Check out the event page and reserve your spots today for incredible Evening Shows, Laidback Lounge Events, and a lot of fun events!

Paparazzi Nightclub

642 Johnson St | Website 

Paparazzi is a staple in Victoria, known for its inclusive, diverse and unique space welcoming customers from all walks of life! The nightclub is going to hold a series of Pride events in the coming weekend, so make sure you mark down events you are interested in on your calendar!

The Vicious Poodle

726 Johnson St | Website 

As a self-styled “Gay Pub”, The Vicious Poodle puts its focus on a wide variety of drag performances. They have different themes for each day’s performance – Queer Dog Comedy Mondays, “Best In Show” Drag Tuesdays, Drag Bingo Wednesdays, and much more for you to check. Visit for a safe queer space and a fun night out!

Some resources to help you learn about the history of Pride, LGBTQ2S+-owned businesses, and more!

Victoria Pride Society

Victoria Pride is a not-for-profit organization of volunteers dedicated to supporting Greater Victoria’s 2SLGBTQIA+ communities. VPS creates opportunities for visibility, collaboration, ongoing conversations and celebration as we work towards equity for all community members who are Gender, Sexuality and/or Relationship Diverse (GSRD). It compiles a directory of local 2SLGBTQIA+ owned businesses which can be reviewed here. If you would like to get involved in the Pride Festival, join their volunteer team and help the festival be safe, positive and inclusive!

Victoria Pink Pages

This website collects LGBTQ2S+-friendly businesses in Victoria and shares their stories. Some of the listings in downtown Victoria include Zambri’s, The Natural Hair Salon, and LURE Restaurant & Bar. Check out the website and support some local and inclusive businesses on the list!

Queer at Sea: Tales from the 2SLGBTQ+ Community

744 Douglas St. | Tuesdays to Saturdays, 10:00 am to 5:00 pm

The Maritime Museum of BC is honoured to showcase some of the histories and contributions of the 2SLGBTQ+ community to BC’s maritime culture. This exhibit shares the stories of some of those community members in their own words. Their deeply personal reflections allow a glimpse at the many ways that orientation and identity have played into their experiences of life at sea. Each person has a unique story, each has moments of triumph and discrimination. What they all share is a passion for life around or on the waters of the coast – from marine recreation to decades-long maritime careers and everything in between.

QUEER FUTURITIES

510 Fort Street, 2nd floor | Wednesdays to Saturdays, 12 to 5:00 pm

How do we want to hold and be held? What do we want our communities to feel like? Using queer polyvocality as a framework for world-building, Queer Futurities aims to create fissures in hegemonic ways of thinking about time, place, archive, and community. Queer Futurities engages the generative possibilities of collective knowledge and care through two parts: holding area and gathering place.