ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. – The Come Out with Pride event will start in downtown Orlando on Saturday.
Executive Director Tatiana Quiroga said people are expected to come from all over to take part in the event.
“We’ve got a bunch of allies too because we realize in the LGBT community allies are equally important,” Quiroga said.
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Quiroga said 185,000 people attended the pride event in 2019.
ParkSleepFly has released a new study naming Orlando as the most LGBTQ-friendly city in the country.
“To see the city itself be in charge of putting up pride flags, you know as a community member it makes me feel so seen by our community,” Quiroga said.
With this year’s event expected to be larger than in 2020, Quiroga said the organization is setting its sights on its bid to host World Pride in 2026.
“We realize it’s going to be the ten-year remembrance of pulse and so that is really an opportunity to be able to share with the world, the progress we made as a community,” Quiroga said.
The economic impact is expected to help businesses around Lake Eola.
Devin Tillman owns Island Time in Thornton Park. He said he expects the pride event to bring in extra business.
“There’s going to be a lot of foot traffic. A lot of people walking by,” Tillman said. “A lot of people park in the neighborhoods and walk this way, so we get a lot of that. It’s like from the lake, we have the music going, it’s going get us in the mind of some people who might not know about us yet.”