Boston’s Pride For The People parade and festival is one of the biggest, brightest and most beautiful in the States, pulling in several thousand participants and around a million spectators for its week-long celebration of love, diversity and inclusion. Baked beans, the Boston Red Sox and that bar ‘where everybody knows your name’ ain't the only thinks to get excited about around these parts: there are also some fine, buzzy ‘gayborhoods’ to explore, like South End, Jones Hill and Jamaica Plain, all of which transform into oceans of rainbow flags and lights for Pride. The week promises all manner of events across the city, from burlesque nights to brewery cookouts, fashion shows and queer cinema. Raise your rainbow flag and dive in for our guide to all the best things to do in Boston on and around Pride Day…
Pride Parade, Block Party & Festival
There will be oodles of fun LGBTQ+ events taking place in Boston through Pride Month, with the majority happening in the days leading up to the parade and festival. We’re talking movie screenings, drag brunches, community events, queer walking tours, picnics, bar crawls and much more. The top of the iconic Prudential Tower will light up in rainbow colors to kick off Pride Month and again on the day of the parade, in support of the LGBTQ+ community. Check local listings for further info and tickets on all June events in Boston.
The big day usually lands on the first or second Saturday of June, when revelers line the streets of the South End to catch a glimpse of outrageous floats, flamboyant drag queens, marching bands, stilt walkers and all manner of other extravagantly garbed participants and performers. The Boston Pride For The People Parade kicks off late morning at Copley Square, painting its celebratory rainbow across the South End before landing up at Boston Common for a top-notch family festival complete with DJs, drag queens and international headline acts. The festival is free and runs from around midday until early evening.
Meanwhile, over at City Plaza, there’s a slightly more grown-up vibe at the free Pride Block Party, which runs for a couple more hours after the Boston Common festival wraps up. This one’s for 21+ attendees only, and promises rather more risqué entertainment in the form of foul-mouthed drag kings and queens, pole dancers and more. New England craft breweries provide the lubrication and DJs spin the party tunes until around 8PM.
Top Tip: Boston Pride for the People recommends Arlington St and Boylston St subway stations on the green line or Back Bay Station on the orange line for the best Parade-viewing opportunities. But get there in plenty of time as it does get extremely busy!
Find about more about the next Boston Pride For The People event here.
Boston Pride After Parties
Fear not: the end of ‘official’ festivities does not mean the party’s over. Far from it, in fact. Indeed, Boston’s Pride after parties are the stuff of legend. Hit up South End stalwart Club Café on Columbus Avenue for some of its legendary cabaret and late-night dancing. The fabulous Liberty Hotel – an utterly transformed former prison in Beacon Hill – usually has a number of events running through Pride Month, including brunches, fashion parades and more. That there will be DJs and live acts playing into the small hours on Pride Saturday is a given.
Try the lively Midway Café, a well-established dive bar in Jamaica Plain with regular live music, or mosey over to Dorchester dBar for craft cocktails and all-night dancing at one of Boston’s best-loved LGBTQ+ clubs.
It’s the morning after the night before, so what better than a rejuvenating drag brunch to help brush those cobwebs away? There will be dozens of these running across Boston during Pride Month, with local favorites including South End Mexican restaurant Cósmica, the Boston Summer Shack over in Back Bay, and the aforementioned Liberty Hotel. Bloody Marys and mimosas naturally come as standard. Again, local listings are your friend for the latest info on all Boston club nights and brunches.
LGBTQ+ Culture in Boston
Something of a trailblazer, Boston is one of those places that’s very much *steeped* in history. Not only the birthplace of the American Revolution, it’s also the capital of Massachusetts, famously the first US state to legalize gay marriage. Go Boston!
As a result, there’s plenty of queer culture to explore, and this is brought to the fore during Pride Month, where museums, walking tours and even castles get in on the action.
The Freedom Trail comprises 16 historic Boston monuments and locations that, between them, contain the entire history of Beantown. There are walking tours of the route – which includes Boston Common, the 17th-century King’s Chapel cemetery and Paul Revere’s House, year-round, many with guides in period dress. Pride Month sees the addition of an excellent ‘Rainbow Revolutionaries’ option, highlighting key players in Boston’s LGBTQ+ community (and their fight for liberty) through the ages.
For something a little (ok: a lot) more light-hearted, pop on your heels and hop aboard a drag-tacular trolley tour of Boston’s most significant female and queer landmarks. However, we’d recommend flat shoes for top Boston LGBTQ+ walking tours like this one.
It’s also worth a day trip out to Hammond Castle and museum up the coast in Gloucester. Founder John Hammond is something of an LGBTQ+ Massachusetts icon so it’s no surprise that there are several special events running here throughout Pride Month, including exhibitions, readings and film screenings.
Visit Boston’s Top Attractions
If you’re in town for a few days and fancy fitting some serious Beantown sightseeing around all that drinking, dancing and drag-brunching, the Go Boston pass is your friend. Choose an Explorer or All-Inclusive option, depending on whether you have specific attractions in your sights or simply want the freedom to visit as many as you’d like over several days. The pass can save you up to 50% on standard entry prices for Boston tours, activities and attractions and includes:
- The View Boston Observation Deck, up top of the iconic Prudential Tower.
- A tour of Fenway Park Stadium, home of the legendary Boston Red Sox.
- A ride on the famous Boston swan boats.
- The absolute treasure trove of art and artifacts that is the Boston Museum of Fine Arts.
- A sunset cruise of the Charles River Basin.
- A guided tour of the charming clapboard farmhouse in nearby Concord, where Louisa May Alcott wrote (and set) American literary masterpiece ‘Little Women’.
- ...and much more!
