Twenty years ago, Greensboro Pride was a much smaller affair.
According to historic information published by IMPAQT GSO, the nonprofit behind the annual celebration, the first Triad Pride Festival welcomed about 400 people and six vendors to Festival Park — now LeBauer Park — in downtown Greensboro in 2006.
This September, organizers are preparing for tens of thousands of people to fill downtown streets for a celebration that would have been difficult to imagine in 2006: Greensboro Pride’s 20th anniversary festival and the first Pride parade organized by Greensboro Pride.
The milestone comes after two decades of remarkable growth, but getting here hasn’t been easy. Greensboro Pride has weathered financial setbacks, changing leadership, two pandemic cancellations and a political climate that has made producing a large, free LGBTQ+ celebration increasingly complicated.
For the organization behind it, however, adapting to change is nothing new. According to IMPAQT GSO’s organizational history, Alternative Resources of the Triad, better known as A.R.T., was founded in 1988 by Katheryn Smith, former executive director of Triad Health Project. An anonymous $1,000 donation helped launch its first event, a Lesbian Health Fair, and A.R.T. soon established the Gay & Lesbian Hotline of the Triad to connect LGBTQ+ people with information and community resources.
As technology changed how people found those resources, A.R.T. changed with it. The hotline eventually gave way to an online presence, with OutGreensboro.com — later renamed OutTriad.org — launching in 2003.
By 2005, the organization was finding new ways to bring LGBTQ+ people together. A.R.T. launched the Queer College Youth Network, connecting student leaders from schools including UNC Greensboro, Guilford College, Wake Forest University and Elon University. It also created Greensboro Out at the Movies!, a queer film series whose screenings regularly sold out, according to IMPAQT.
According to IMPAQT GSO’s organizational history, A.R.T. hosted the first Triad Pride Festival in 2006 at Festival Park, now LeBauer Park, in downtown Greensboro. It was a modest beginning: about 400 people attended, and just six vendors participated.
Something else significant about Greensboro 2006: it was also part of a much larger Pride tradition that year. The city hosted NC Pride, the statewide celebration that rotated among North Carolina cities and included a Pride parade. The two events were distinct: NC Pride brought a statewide celebration to Greensboro, while A.R.T.’s Triad Pride was a locally organized festival intended to create an annual LGBTQ+ gathering rooted in the Triad.
By 2011, more than 1,300 people were attending Triad Pride, according to Qnotes coverage, and by 2015, the festival had outgrown Festival Park. Organizers moved the celebration to South Elm Street, where an estimated 10,000 people attended.
The festival kept growing. By 2015, organizers moved Greensboro Pride to South Elm Street to accommodate an estimated 10,000 attendees. A 2019 press release reported more than 15,000 people at that year’s festival. Then everything stopped.
In January of 2020, A.R.T. announced plans for what it called the first-ever Greensboro Pride Parade. Months later, COVID-19 forced organizers to cancel both the parade and festival. Plans to return for Greensboro Pride’s 15th anniversary in 2021 were also canceled as COVID cases continued to rise.
When Pride finally returned in 2022, the community returned with it. According to A.R.T., nearly 40,000 people attended, with more than 160 sponsors, vendors and food trucks. But just three months later, the organization was confronting another crisis.
In December 2022, scammers gained access to A.R.T.’s PayPal account and stole approximately $40,000. FOX8 reported that the organization responded by turning to the community, including holding a January drag show fundraiser at Chemistry Nightclub. Within weeks, the nonprofit had recovered roughly half of the money.
Once again, Pride continued. The City of Greensboro estimated 60,000 people attended the downtown celebration in 2023.
In 2025, IMPAQT reported record-breaking attendance of more than 95,000. Growth, however, comes with a price tag. The political environment surrounding LGBTQ+ organizations has shifted dramatically in recent years, particularly as corporations have pulled back from diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives.
FOX8 reported in June 2025 that Greensboro Pride was among the organizations feeling the impact. Corporate sponsorships that help pay for stages, performers, security and other festival expenses had declined. That challenge hasn’t gone away.
For its 20th anniversary, IMPAQT launched a $100,000 capital campaign to help pay for the parade, expanded festival programming, security, accessibility and dedicated youth and sober spaces. The campaign says corporate sponsorships are “way down” and that while the City of Greensboro provides in-kind support, it does not directly fund Pride.
At the same time, IMPAQT has demonstrated that financial pressure doesn’t mean accepting money at any cost. In September 2025, the organization announced that it would decline funding from an organization that had decided to end gender-affirming care. The decision illustrated a difficult balancing act: How do you keep an enormous community celebration free while some traditional sources of LGBTQ+ funding are retreating — and while remaining willing to walk away from money that conflicts with the organization’s values?
For IMPAQT, Pride is part of something larger. “Visibility matters, but sustained support matters even more,” the organization wrote in a recent look at Greensboro Pride’s evolution.
Alternative Resources of the Triad became IMPAQT GSO in 2025, a rebranding reflecting an organization that increasingly sees its mission extending beyond its September celebration. Over the past two years, IMPAQT says it has expanded its board and created committees focused on governance, compliance, logistics, programming and partnerships while increasing year-round social events, professional networking, advocacy and collaborations with other community organizations.
The changes represent the latest evolution of an organization that began almost four decades ago by answering phone calls from LGBTQ+ people looking for resources. Now it’s preparing for its biggest Pride celebration yet.
For its 20th anniversary, Greensboro Pride isn’t limiting the celebration to one day. Pride Week begins Saturday, September 5, with the 2026 Greensboro Pride Pageant at The Pyrle, where contestants will compete in a night of talent, creativity and pageantry before this year’s Pride royalty is crowned. Doors open at 5 p.m., with the pageant beginning at 6 p.m., according to IMPAQT GSO.
The celebration continues Thursday, September 10, with the fifth annual LGBTQ+ Art Show and Exhibition, presented by Carolina Aging Alliance and Creative Aging Network in partnership with AARP Triad Region and IMPAQT GSO. The intergenerational exhibition welcomes everything from painting and graphic art to textiles and three-dimensional work, with an opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m.
Later that evening, Pride gets a little more competitive with Twisted Trivia: Greensboro Pride Edition at 7 p.m., followed Friday night by the official Greensboro Pride Kickoff Dance Party at Chemistry Nightclub. The party starts at 10 p.m., September 11 and leads into the biggest day of the week.
On Saturday, September 12, Greensboro Pride will celebrate its 20th anniversary, which the parade organizers first hoped to hold six years ago before the pandemic derailed those plans. The parade will kick off Pride Day before flowing directly into the festival, bringing a new kind of LGBTQ+ visibility to downtown Greensboro.
“Parades are powerful,” IMPAQT announced in their plans. “They take visibility out of contained spaces and bring it into the heart of the city.”
On Saturday, September 12, the long-awaited Greensboro Pride Parade steps off at 10 a.m. near East McGee and South Elm streets and travels through downtown toward City Center Park. Community organizations, nonprofits, businesses, marching bands, performance groups and community leaders are expected to participate.
The parade flows directly into the free Greensboro Pride Festival, running from 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. in and around LeBauer Park. IMPAQT GSO says the downtown festival will feature more than 300 exhibitors along with food trucks, community organizations and local and national entertainers performing on two stages. Festival-goers can also explore a family-friendly KidZone, an 18-and-over Adults Only Alley, a Food Truck Rodeo and ticketed VIP and performer meet-and-greet experiences.
Accessibility is also built into the celebration. IMPAQT says ASL interpreters will be provided for performances, and the parade route and festival footprint were selected with wheelchair and mobility-device access in mind.
And Pride doesn’t end when the festival closes at 7 p.m. The official afterparty begins at Twist Lounge at 8:30 p.m. with music and dancing and a $5 cover.
For those looking for a quieter close to the weekend, College Place United Methodist Church will host a Pride Weekend Worship Service at 11 a.m. Sunday, September 13, followed by lunch.
Together, the events make the 20th anniversary celebration something larger than just a single festival. They also reflect how much Greensboro Pride has changed since a few hundred people and six vendors gathered in Festival Park two decades ago.
Over 20 years, Greensboro Pride has weathered setbacks, adapted to change and grown from a gathering of hundreds into a celebration of tens of thousands. On September 12, Pride will move through the streets of Greensboro. And after 20 years, it’s still moving forward.
This story is brought to you by Rosedale Health and Wellness and Dudley’s Place.
