Utah Pride Festival will spotlight local talent and ‘community,’ after overspending last year, leader says

After spending more than it earned last year, the Utah Pride Festival will be a scaled-back event in 2024, focusing on Utah talent, local LGBTQ+ groups and a theme of “community,” the new director of the Utah Pride Center said.

The festival, set for the first weekend of June at Washington Square Park in downtown Salt Lake City, will have the theme “Community: Building Unity Within the Community,” said Chad Call, the center’s newly appointed executive director, at a news conference Wednesday.

The theme, Call said, “reflects our commitment to coming together, supporting each other and celebrating our diversity.”

Call’s announcement came six months after his predecessor, Ryan Newcomb, declared the debt the center amassed after the 2023 festival was “indefensible” and that the LGBTQ+ nonprofit was working to create a 2024 Pride Festival that is “responsive to our community.”

Newcomb resigned as executive director in March, citing health reasons, after less than 7 months in the job. Call was appointed interim director then, and has since made the job permanent.

“We did run into a lot of debt last year,” Call said Wednesday. “We have been fortunate to have some assets that were able to cover that debt. I’m really excited to be in a situation where we’re not having to raise funds to cover previous debt. This year, we are going to return to a fiscally responsible model, one that was used in 2022.”

Last year’s debt, Call said, was a result of “a gross overspend and not enough revenue coming in to cover the expenses that were incurred.” The center is still awaiting results of a forensic financial audit, Call said.

Last year’s festival drew criticisms from frustrated locals over fees charged to vendors. Call said issues with payment for vendors who did participate last year have been “resolved.”

A major expense of the 2023 festival was the $300,000 spent on security. This year, Call said, the security budget will come in “around $275,000.”

“One of the largest scale-backs is in our staging and production,” Call said. Though he couldn’t give exact figures, Call said the center spent around $500,000 on production — including talent, lights, a sound system and related items — in 2023. This year, he said, the figure has been cut by about 80%.

“We are moving towards a local Utah talent this year to hopefully mitigate some of the performance fees that were spent and then the actual production itself,” he said.

The festival will feature entertainment on three stages, Call said, including “the return of the crowd-favorite karaoke stage, in the northwest corner of Washington Square.” That stage will showcase local Utah bands and performers, he said.

A new feature at this year’s festival, he said, is Rainbow Alley, “a space where all of our local Pride festival organizations in Utah are invited to come together and share their stories and promote their events” — at no cost.

Call confirmed that Utah Transit Authority is a “topaz” sponsor for the event. Last year, the agency pulled a Pride-themed bus from the festival, after complaints from Republican lawmakers.

The Pride Festival, Call said, begins with the traditional interfaith worship service, Friday, May 30, at 7 p.m., at Congregation Kol Ami, 2425 Heritage Way, Salt Lake City.

On Saturday, June 1, he said, the festival will begin with a 10 a.m. rally on the south lawn of the Utah Capitol, in partnership with Equality Utah. That will be followed by a march down State Street to the festival’s grounds at City Hall, at Washington Square Park, with the festival running from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.

On Sunday, June 2, the Utah Pride Parade is set to start at 10 a.m., on a route through downtown. Call said the parade is expected to feature 16,000 participants, and he hopes to draw nearly 100,000 spectators. The festival then concludes that Sunday at Washington Square Park, from noon to 7 p.m.

Call is the third leader of the Utah Pride Center in the last 12 months, and the nonprofit has had more than a dozen leadership changes over the last decade. Call said he “empathizes” with the community’s frustration to that constant turmoil.

“I validate it, because there’s no denying that we’ve had a significant amount of change and a quick turnover,” Call said. “I also know that our community is one of the most resilient communities out there. It’s a community that constantly experiences change — not that that is reason to provide that change. However, it’s reason to stick through it.”

Despite the turmoil, Call said, there is purpose in the organization. (One of Newcomb’s focuses was to rebuild broken trust with the broader LGBTQ community.)

The center’s focus, “where we’re putting a lot of our human resources into right now,” Call said, is “the largest program, which is Pride. … It is a program that probably impacts more LGBTQ individuals in a single program than any other program in the state right now.”

The center is working to remain relevant, he said, by working with other LGBTQ+ organizations. “We recognize that there’s great work being done in the community by other organizations,” he said. “We want to support those organizations. We want to partner with them.”

The center is hosting support groups on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday night and also has “youth hours.”

The center now has three full-time employees and one contractor, Call said. Last year, the center had a staff of 19, before two rounds of furloughs.

“I don’t see us returning back to a 20-person staff anytime soon,” Call said. “We are working off of a leaner and more sustainable model.”

For now, Call said, the nonprofit’s primary focus is getting through “our largest program, which is Pride. … Our vision is focused on pride. We are excited that the board has a strategic plan in place, that its primary focus this year is Pride.”