Stonewall Pride Wilton Manors

With the 2016 Stonewall Pride Wilton Manors falling right on the heels of the Orlando Massacre, I want to express my sincere thanks to the men and women of the Broward County Sheriff’s Department, Wilton Manors Police Department and all of the other security and law enforcement personnel who were present in mass in order to ensure the safety of all.
As always the parade and activities surrounding the Stonewall Pride Wilton Manors were top notch Five Star fun. Besides the parade itself, there were so many vendors, information booths and other activities, one couldn’t attend them all with no way I could even begin to list them all.
What I can say is that the parade and events were different this year than they have been in the past. The parade itself was bigger than ever but this year everything seemed to take on a different meaning. The entire atmosphere of the event took on a certain meaning of unity and solidarity, not just amongst the gays, but amongst everyone. It wasn’t entirely a gay thing, a lesbian thing, a bi or trans thing. It was an event that captivated the fundamental realization and fact that we are all humans, and as such must stick together. The harm done the prior week in Orlando was a harm done to us all. Your sexual orientation made no difference. Indeed, I was impressed by the fact that so many sexual straight people traveled such great distances to be there in a show of their support not just for those of us who are gay, but for the acceptance of the good found in everyone and for humanity in general.
It’s amazing the social progress we’ve all made since ’60’s and ’70’s, times in history when the police and straights used to come around to gays and gay areas with a mind thought of anything but the protection of gays, and the gays in turn feared and hated them both. So, it’s refreshing to see all of that gone, vanished and relegated to some obscure pages of history. And, it is Stonewall Pride that more than anything else epitomizes the social progress we’ve made.

For a little city like Wilton Manors they go out in a big big way for this event. Everything is well planned out and it is a good way to see how the crowds from all walks of life come together. I have been to the one in Los Angeles but this one beats it.

OK, there aren’t enough words to describe how great the Stonewall Summer Pride and Parade in Wilton Manors is! This parade and festival are fun, well thought out and organized, and this event in Wilton Manors seems to have overcome a few of the points that have sort of plagued Miami Beach’s pride parade in past years.
While Miami Beach’s parade has always been great (and Unilocal Miami is always well represented with an awesome and fun group to watch the parade!), there have also been some downsides to MBGP. Miami Beach’s parade starts at high noon, which means the sun is scorching, even in April when that festival usually takes place. For the past few years it’s been held on a Sunday which can be inconvenient for many, as they need to work on Monday morning. Also, Miami Beach doesn’t have a «gay district» per se, so aside from Palace on Ocean Drive and maybe Twist a few blocks away, there’s really nowhere else in that immediate vicinity to go right after the parade to keep the momentum going.
Wilton Manors’ Stonewall Summer Pride seems to have thought of all those things, and as a result, have a parade and festival which is nearly perfect IMO.
Stonewall Summer Pride has their parade on a Saturday evening, starting at 7:30. Perfect! It’s cooler out, there’s no sun overhead to scorch everyone, most people don’t need to worry about getting up to work early the next morning, and by having the parade at 7:30, this allows people to have dinner immediately before or after watching the parade, and then stay in the area to socialize, dance, drink and party! Also, since there are so many gay bars on Wilton Drive (most people who come here on any given week tend to «crawl» from bar to bar along The Drive), most have bars set up beside or in front of their establishments to keep thirsty parade spectators happy. One of the businesses also had a mini food truck roundup in their parking lot so people could grab decent food quickly throughout the evening.
The parade itself was great, but wasn’t as long and didn’t have as many entries as Miami Beach usually does… Which is a bit surprising (and maybe a little disappointing) considering Wilton Manors and the area around it has many more LGBT-​oriented businesses. What Wilton did right (again) was that, rather than having the entire 2 lane street closed off for the parade as Miami Beach does, Wilton only had the parade move down 1 single lane, with the other lane taken up by spectators, temporary bars, stages, etc. This also allowed the parade to feel more «intimate» with the spectators much closer to the floats and entries. Stonewall also did a decent job of keeping the «holes» in the parade closed up so there weren’t any long waits between the time you’d view one float/​entry and the time the next one would pass.
Afterward, Wilton Drive remained closed to traffic and filled up with people, and all the bars and restaurants on «the Drive» filled up with patrons who wanted to keep partying and keep the momentum going after the parade.
The only «buzz kill» was that the police started driving up and down Wilton Drive by about 10:30, trying to get everyone to clear off the street. It was a bit silly IMO, as both ends of Wilton would still be blocked off for at least several more hours, there were still barracades down the center of Wilton Drive, but yet they were harassing everyone to move out of the street for some reason. This caused some people who were enjoying the stages and bars along the street to simply leave. At one point I was having a conversation with 3 or 4 others beside one of the barricades at about 12:30, and here came an officer, racing down the Drive with his lights going, to tell us to get out of the middle of the street and onto the sidewalk. When I left this area a few hours later, vehicles still weren’t allowed on that road, so I don’t quite understand the directive to clear everyone out so early.
Aside from that, this event was fun, well planned out, and it was everything a festival and a true celebration for the LGBTQ community and their allies should be. On Sunday, the street was once again blocked off for several more hours while «T-​dances» and other events took place. Looking forward to next year already!