1st Pride festival for Kentville, Wolfville kicks off this week

Two towns in Nova Scotia's Annapolis Valley are celebrating their first official Pride festival this week, with a series of events and performances.

It's called Valley Pride and it's taking place in the Kentville and Wolfville areas.

"We are so blown away by the outpouring of support we've gotten from the community, from the volunteers who are helping us put the events on, local businesses who sponsored us," Ashley Cyr, the festival's co-ordinator, told CBC Radio's Information Morning Nova Scotia.

The festival kicks off on Wednesday and runs until Sunday. Events include a Pride patch embroidery workshop, an open mic night, drag performances, a concert and a Pride march — all of which celebrate the LGBTQ community. 

Cyr said she was worried about how the festival would be received by the communities, but so far, everyone has been supportive.

"It's one of those things where the more people get excited, the more we add to it," she said.

"We do have a pretty big and exciting lineup of events. Definitely more than we were planning in the beginning, but we're so happy with how it's coming together."

She said some of the events will be family friendly, including a rock painting station in Kentville's Centre Square, in partnership with the local mural festival. 

There will also be a sing-a-long and picnic with the Wolfville Queer Community Chorus and a softball game in Memorial Park.

"It's going to be super low pressure," Cyr said. "You don't have to be an athlete, just have a willingness to learn, maybe get a little wet if it does rain, because we're going to be rain or shine."

Cyr said there will also be some "spicier" events that are 19 and up — one of which is called "Everyone's a Whittle Bit Gay."

"We've got an all-queer variety show on Friday night at the Al Whittle [Theatre], so that's going to feature music, comedy, burlesque, drag," she said.

There will also be a drag show at the King's Arms Pub in Kentville on Saturday, which was the subject of online backlash after it hosted another drag event earlier this year.

It's so important to us to make sure that everyone in our community can access the events and feel safe at them.- Ashley Cyr, Valley Pride co-ordinator

Cyr said there are still some concerns about potential protests, so the festival has hired security for some events thanks to some federal funding meant to help ensure Pride festivals stay safe.

"We're drawing from folks who are from the community and familiar with working with the queer community," Cyr said. 

"We think it's going to be really helpful to just have people feel a little bit more at ease with both the safety that security offers and then also the safety of knowing that these are folks who aren't coming from a law enforcement perspective."

She added that accessibility has been included in the festival's planning since Day 1. 

"It's so important to us to make sure that everyone in our community can access the events and feel safe at them," Cyr said.

She said there will be sign language interpreters at the shows and there are accessibility notes included on each event page, so people will know what kind of space and resources will be available to them.

Cyr said she's excited for the festival to get underway, especially after all of the LGBTQ activism in the Annapolis Valley.

"We wouldn't have been able to do [this] without the really strong foundation that other folks have been doing and the activism that's been going on here for years, so we're really grateful to those people."