Haywood County’s third annual Pride on Main will bring a full weekend of LGBTQ+ celebration to Waynesville from Friday, June 26, through Sunday, June 28. The festivities include Saturday’s “Small Town, Big Pride Parade & Festival” downtown and the closing event “Garlic Bread with the Gays” pool party.
“In 2024 and again in 2025, we gathered in the heart of Waynesville to march, gather and celebrate,” organizers shared in a statement.
This year, Pride on Main again invites LGBTQ+ people, allies and mountain communities downtown for a weekend of events, including a parade, music, vendor booths and opportunities to connect.
Saturday’s public celebration begins at 10 a.m. June 27 at the Haywood County Courthouse, where community members will speak before the Pride on Main Parade steps off through downtown Waynesville at 10:30 a.m. Award-winning, Billboard-charting western North Carolina artist Flamy Grant will serve as parade marshal, joining local speakers in honoring “the resilience, visibility and joy of LGBTQ+ lives in Western North Carolina.”
Grant, a singer-songwriter and drag performer whose 2022 debut, Bible Belt Baby, reached No. 1 on the iTunes Christian chart, will also host a drag story hour during the festival and emcee an evening drag show.
After the parade, the celebration moves to Wall Street for the Pride on Main Festival, which runs from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Organizers promise “live musical performances, wrestling, roaming buskers and more than 80 local vendors showcasing art, food and community resources.”
Pride on Main, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, says its mission is to create “safe, welcoming spaces in Haywood County where all people are free to be themselves, without fear or discrimination.”
Speaking with WLOS at the inaugural event in 2024, organizer Dr. Tera McIntosh said local LGBTQ+ residents were ready to build the safety, diversity and support they needed closer to home. “We’re tired of going to Asheville to find safety. We’re tired of going to Asheville to find a drag show or persons of color or support of resources for trans persons,” she said. “We’re staying right here in Haywood County and we’re building it.”
The weekend concludes Sunday with Garlic Bread with the Gays at the Pool, a closing gathering at The Loralei Inn. The event offers one more chance for attendees to relax, connect and carry the spirit of the weekend beyond the parade route.
Farther north in the mountains, MY Pride NC will host PrideFest 2026: Pride In Every Holler from 1 to 6 p.m. Saturday, June 27, at Penland School of Craft’s Northlight Building in Bakersville. The event serves Mitchell and Yancey counties, offering another reminder that the LGBTQ+ community is growing across in leaps and bounds in western North Carolina.
Info on Haywood County Pride in Waynesville can be found at https://www.haywoodncprideonmain.org/. For NC Pridefest in Bakersville, go to https://www.mypridenc.org/.
