While the annual festival would normally be held at the end of this week, this year’s Ogden Pride Festival will be held Oct. 3-4.

Ogden Pride President and Festival Director Sean Childers-Gray told the Standard-Examiner about the reasons for the change.

“Last year during planning — in the heat with the city doing our walkthrough — we realized that it’s just increasingly getting warmer and warmer,” he said. “So with kind of a posed question between myself and the city planners, just kind of like, ‘What is the possibility of shifting since we had traditionally held that weekend (first full weekend of August) for the past 11 years?’ And so it kind of started from there, and we as a board decided that we shouldn’t be the sole voice in making that decision.”

He said the question was posed to attendees at last year’s Ogden Pride Festival whether to move the festival to the beginning of October or stay at the beginning of August, and the results were overwhelming — move to October.

Childers-Gray said that it’s actually a very fitting month to hold the Ogden Pride Festival during.

“We decided it would be a great way to kick off a month that is actually LGBTQ History Month, and there are many, many other days of awareness for the community in that month,” he said. “There’s National Coming Out Day, there’s Day of Silence, there’s Spirit Week, there’s the National Pride Center Day.”

He said that, pending permitting, the footprint of the festival in October will include 25th Street from Grant Avenue to Washington Avenue, the Ogden Amphitheater two beer garden areas and a new busker area.

“We have open room for a lot more entertainment that way,” he said. “And it will just give more walking room and with the heightened need to make sure that we are ADA-aware and compliant and making sure that our community members who need a little bit more accessibility have a better way of getting around to our booths. It should help with a lot of that.”

Childers-Gray said he’s hoping the change in timing will help attract more people to the weekend festivities.

“I’m hoping that the cooler weather brings out more people and has over the couple of years being in August, it is one of the things that we’ve noticed the hotter it gets, the less traffic we have,” he said. “Clearly people don’t want to be out in the middle of the day in the heat. I get it, and so, we’re hoping that that does bring more people out in a cooler environment.”

In the mean time, he said that there are still plenty of opportunities for vendors, volunteers, entertainment and sponsors to sign up.

“Our applications are open,” Childers-Gray said. “We’ve secured about 50 of our vendors so far, so we’ve got plenty of room for those who would like to join us to sign up. We’re still looking for entertainment to fill our stages. Our volunteers — we haven’t started pushing too hard on our volunteers yet, but we’re always open for volunteers. We’ll need about 150 volunteers this year to support our needs for the weekend. And as always, everyone’s looking for the sponsors. We actually received a RAMP Grant. This is our third year receiving RAMP Grant money, and we have a need to match that grant money.”

He said that the move shows that Pride is about more than just a single month on the calendar.

“Pride isn’t just a one month thing for us as LGBTQ+ people,” he said. “It’s about coming together. And especially here in Ogden, where we’re such a diversity, it’s about bringing the community together and celebrating and supporting that.”

Childers-Gray added that the festival is open to all across Ogden, whether a part of the LGBTQ+ community or not.

“This festival isn’t just about Ogden Pride and the organization and board,” he said. “It’s about bringing together the community, and so, it’s everyone’s festival. We look for and welcome those who would like to join us and participate.”

Additional information on scheduling and entertainment will be available as the festival draws nearer.

For more information, visit https://www.ogdenpride.org/ogden-pride-festival/.