Three Rivers to hold first-ever Pride Festival in city

By Robert Tomlinson
News Director

THREE RIVERS — Members and allies of the LGBTQ+ community from across the area and across the state are expected to pack downtown Three Rivers next week for a first-of-its-kind event in the history of the city.
The first-ever Three Rivers Pride Festival will take place Saturday, June 24 from noon to 9 p.m. on Main Street in downtown Three Rivers, and will feature live music, food, art and other events throughout the day, all while celebrating diversity, acceptance and inclusivity. The downtown block of Main Street and Portage Avenue up to Joshua Drive will be blocked off to accommodate the event.
Some of the live music on tap include Funk 211 and some local DJs spinning personalized music sets on stage. A number of vendors will be on hand, as well as food trucks and booths from local businesses.
While the Pride Festival as a whole is free to the public to attend, capping off the day will be The Kittens Drag Show, held at the Riviera Theatre beginning at 7 p.m., with tickets costing $15.
Andrew George, chair of the Three Rivers Pride Committee, the organization putting on the event, said he was excited to put on the event, and that the Three Rivers community has been supportive of the group’s efforts so far.
“We were a little weary at the beginning. We knew what we were getting ourselves into, but we were just honestly amazed at how overwhelmingly the community supports this movement,” George said. “We had hope and we had confidence, and here we are, it’s a reality now.”
The spark that got George and others on the committee thinking about putting together a Pride Festival in the city began back in November 2021 with the controversy surrounding the removal of Pride flags in Three Rivers schools. George and others in the community had organized a protest outside of the first school board meeting following the incident, where the directive to take down the flags was rescinded.
“We were unsure of what the turnout would be like or what would happen [with the protest],” George said. “When we got there, so many members from the community were there, and we realized we had a ton of support.”
However, the event that solidified wanting to bring a Pride Festival to Three Rivers was a rally that winter on a Sunday near downtown Three Rivers, organized by a friend of George’s.
“A friend of mine reached out and asked if I was interested in joining him and a few others down here in downtown holding signs, Pride flags, just some support for an hour on a Sunday down here. We did so, and much to all of our surprises, 95 percent of all the responses we got were positive,” George said. “That’s kind of when the thought occurred first that, hey, Three Rivers is probably ready for a Pride festival.”
The Three Rivers Pride Committee, which currently has nine members, was then formed in the summer of 2022, and the festival was announced back in January.
Cameron Mains, the committee’s secretary, said it was “extremely exciting” to have downtown be the backdrop for such an event.
“This is our event venue we use as a town for all of those important events, whether it be Midnight on Main where we all watch the ball drop together, or Sass in the City ladies’ night, this is where everyone in the town can come and feel comfortable and safe. It also really helps out the businesses as well,” Mains said. “As soon as they brought this idea up, I was happy to be a part of it.”
While both George and Mains are also part of the city’s Downtown Development Authority board, with Mains the DDA’s executive director, they both made it clear that the event was not organized by the DDA.
“This is not a DDA event. As the Pride Committee, we are thrilled to have the support of the DDA, but this is totally unaffiliated with the DDA,” George said.
Both George and Mains acknowledged that there have been some naysayers of the event, including a group led by current State Rep. Steve Carra and other former Republican State House candidates planning to do a so-called “prayer vigil” the day before the festival, but said they are the “loud minority” when it came to responses to the festival and its purpose.
“There’s been small challenges, but the big thing for us is we can’t let the loud minority affect us doing the right thing,” George said. “We have seen from the protest to the rally we did downtown, we’ve seen the community is on our side, and we can’t let the loud few detract us from doing what is right.”
“We’re not forcing anyone to attend this festival; it’s just one night to celebrate a certain population in the community, and we do that at various other points of the year, whether it be a ladies’ night or something like that,” Mains said. “We’re just trying to mirror that and let that community know that if you want to invest in a safe space, they have Three Rivers to come to.”
“The only agenda we have is promoting love and acceptance,” George added.
The pair said that safety and security for those who come to the festival will be ensured, as the committee has been in communication with the Three Rivers Police Department, St. Joseph County Sheriff’s Department and private security to help keep attendees safe. For the drag show at the Riviera, Mains said there will be no bags allowed, and metal detectors will be used.
George said he expects between 1,500 and 2,000 people to attend the festival throughout the day, based on some of the responses gotten on social media, and that, as Mains pointed out, it is the lone Pride Festival scheduled for the weekend in the southwest Michigan area. With that said, the duo encouraged local businesses downtown to stay open for the festivities.
“We’re anticipating close to 2,000 people down here that are going to be looking for places to shop on the downtown strip here. We definitely encourage businesses to stay open, take advantage of the opportunity and get registers ringing,” George said, noting that the festival has had significant support financially from businesses both big and small.
One of the big expectations George and Mains said they have for the inaugural Three Rivers Pride Festival is to show that Three Rivers can be accepting to a historically marginalized group of people.
“One of our expectations is that people see that downtown Three Rivers is loving and accepting, especially of the LGBTQ+ community,” George said. “We’re looking to change the tide and show that acceptance is the way forward, even in a rural community like Three Rivers.”
Overall, the duo said they look forward to seeing how the first festival goes, and they hope the festival can become an annual event and a staple of the city.
“Even if things don’t go as great as we want to, we’re not going anywhere,” George said.
“We’re hoping to be a pillar of this community just as long as Water Festival,” Mains said. “We’re just planting the seeds right now.”
Robert Tomlinson can be reached at 279-7488 or robert@threeriversnews.com.