San Diego Pride Week Festival

This year, festival-goers attending the 2011 San Diego Pride Festival can look forward to a fun-filled, extravaganza of a weekend in fully fabulous regale.  Held this July 16th at 11am, the Pride Festival parade begins at University Avenue and Normal Street then proceeds west to 6th Avenue, ending on Balboa Drive and Upas Street.

Tthe Pride Festival parade typically spans for two hours and is a great chance for San Diego to show its support to the LGBT community.  With this year’s theme, ‘Pride around the World’—be sure you show up and show your pride and/or support.  Though the festival is geared toward supporting the gay community, the event attracts all ages and everyone is more than welcome to join in on the fun.

Filled with an abundance of colorful and fantastical array of festivities, featuring concert performers, four stages, three dance floors and a whole lot of booths, the San Diego Pride Festival is one of the largest gay celebrations on the West Coast.  The festival itself, includes more than 80 musicians, bands, comedy and dance performers, 300 performing vendor booths, an art exhibit, cultural presentations, and, of course, food.

Hip hop legends Salt-N-Pepa will be headlining the festival, Sunday, July 17.  The duo has garnered attention from their safe-sex campaign produced in collaboration with ABC News anchor, Peter Jennings, with their video, “Let’s Talk about Aids,” a spin-off of their hit song, “Let’s Talk about Sex.”

Pride’s Saturday night headliner is comedian and star of “Drop Dead Diva,” Margaret Cho.  She recently had the chance to don guy-attire, appearing as North Korean despot Kim Jong-II in “30 Rock.”

The comedian says that she hopes her parents, who currently reside in San Diego will come out for the celebration along with other hetero San Diegians.

She is quoted in the July print issue of Pacific San Diego Magazine with this piece of advice for festival-goers: “I think people should probably put sun block on their ass if they’re going to wear ass-less chaps.  That’s very important, because your ass is not very reflective,” which is a good piece of advice to reflect upon and definitely a great insight into the festivities this weekend.

Photo Courtesy of Guillaume Paumier via Flickr.