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Winter Pride festival coming to St. Pete in ’25
A new Winter Pride festival is coming to St. Petersburg in 2025.
David Fischer, owner and operator of popular St. Pete establishments The Saint, Cocktail, The Wet Spot, ZaZoo’d and the recently renovated Mari Jean Hotel, said plans are in motion to produce and orchestrate a new annual Winter Pride celebration, beginning in February 2025 in the Grand Central District.
“I feel like there’s a need [for an event] at that time of the year because it’s cooler,” said Fischer. “We’re not trying to outdo the other one. We’re trying to give people a reason to come to St. Pete and spend money. It benefits all of us, all businesses.”
Every June, the Sunshine City is packed with people for one of the biggest LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations in the country, including a waterfront parade and a month of celebrations around the city. The annual event has been hosted by the St. Pete Pride organization for more than 20 years. According to the City of St. Petersburg, last year’s festivities saw approximately 300,000 revelers, and an analysis from Visit St. Pete/Clearwater showed the Pride celebration generated a total local economic impact of $67.2 million in 2022.
“We already have the tourist season coming up, but we feel like we can extend that season by offering the community something else and not waiting until June,” Fischer said. “The June crowds are awesome. It’s insane. We break a record during Pride every year, and I keep saying, “God, we can’t fit any more people in here.” We want to ride the coattails of that and bring more business to the city.”
Fischer said there’s still a lot of work to be done, including working out the details with the City and partnering with other businesses in the area to program a full week of events from Feb. 3-9, 2025, including a street festival and vendor market but likely not a parade.
Michael
December 21, 2023at11:01 pm
It’s good to have another event but in February the weather can be total opposite of June. It’s possible to be very cold and windy and horrid conditions. Could go either way with 75 and sunny to 45 drizzly and windy. Depends on the overall pattern that year.
AJ Broome
December 21, 2023at10:11 pm
If I were to bet on it, Winter Pride will dominate shortly.
I’m getting older and can’t take the heat. I don’t want to walk on blocks of asphalt that’s 160 degrees
Joey Mingione
December 21, 2023at1:30 pm
Would love to see the June event moved to February and maybe combine the two. The organizer may say they aren’t trying to outdo the other but it will definitely impact sponsorships with two events within 5 months. I realize June is Pride month but its also oppressively hot and humid month as well.
OriginalJud
December 21, 2023at11:46 am
My biggest complain about that event is the time of year is way too hot to be outside on that block party all day