A Day in the Life of Seattle Pride Planning

We all know that nothing happens in a vacuum… and that goes for planning the return of Washington state’s largest parade, and the nation’s fourth largest Pride Parade! That’s why the staff of Seattle Pride – Krystal, Noah, Ross and Nick – want to give you a peek behind the scenes at a day in the life of putting on the Seattle Pride Parade.

7AM

The morning starts a little too early, as Krystal (our Executive Director), gets into the office. She’s answering emails from folks asking whether there will be a Pride parade this year (there will be – on June 26^th!), responding to grant and sponsorship requests (over $236,000 dispersed since 2018), and checking on what will be posted to social media that day.

9AM

The rest of the Seattle Pride staff gets in, and our Communications & Partnerships Manager, Ross, immediately dives into emails. She gets messages from local businesses and other organizations looking to put on their own Pride Month events, and collaborates with them on how Seattle Pride can help. She is also responding to various emails from our corporate partners to make sure everyone has what they need going into the month of June.

Nick, our brand new Program Coordinator, checks what parade registrations came in overnight and checks to see if anything is missing; he may follow up by calling parade registrants to get their announcer script, or remind them to submit their Vehicle Hold Harmless Agreement.

11AMNo Pride parade can be complete without – you guessed it – port-a-potties and fencing! Our Programs Manager, Noah (not pictured), works with our volunteer Parade Director (Marc Ackerman) on everything from how many seats per grandstand to where to put volunteers along Fourth Avenue during the parade. He is also busy making sure we have accessibility provisions, such as ASL interpretation at each stage, food and beverage volunteers to assist folks in getting snacks, and walking the parade route with our accessibility consultants to make sure we capture as many potential accessibility issues as possible.

1PM

A little after lunchtime, all of us have... gone a little loopy.

3PM

We’ve reined it back in, and Krystal is hard at work editing the June issue of the Seattle Pride Magazine, the Official Pride Guide! Inside it are articles, maps of our events, spotlight on our performers, and an event listing of other LGBTQIA+ happenings throughout the month of June, and folks can find the Magazine in nearly 1,000 locations throughout King County. We are also wrapping up various meetings about logistics for our two different June events, and working with our public relations team to make sure everyone in the community knows the “who, what, when, where, why and how” of everything we have going on.

5PM

We are hard at work creating new Seattle Pride merchandise, crafting an e-newsletter, paying vendors for their Seattle Pride in the Park and Seattle Pride Parade services, and reaching out to donors to support Seattle Pride’s mission.

7PM

With more emails to answer than we can shake a (very glittery) stick at, it is time shuffle back to our homes. We do one final check-in on where projects were left off, who needs to follow with whom the next day, and then we all say goodnight and recommit to continuing the work tomorrow!