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New Pride Week Dates

Kamloops Pride Week moving from August to June

Feb 14, 2025 | 12:48 PM

KAMLOOPS — Mark your calendars Kamloops as the annual Pride Week festivities will be held a couple months earlier than usual, starting this year.

The Kamloops Pride Society says the annual event will get underway on Monday, June 9, with the Pride Parade and Festival scheduled for Sunday, June 15.

“There were multiple considerations when deciding to move Kamloops Pride Week,” Kamloops Pride President Alyssa Christianson said.

“Kamloops weather in August often brings very high temperatures and smoke. Being in the middle of wildfire season, August Pride Week faces risk of poor air quality and travel restrictions.”

Its not the first summer event in the Kamloops-area to change its dates in recent years. Both the Kamloopa Powwow and the Roots and Blues festival in Salmon Arm have ditched August dates for slightly cooler and hopefully less smoky dates in June and July respectively.

“Kamloops Pride has previously experienced out of town performers cancelling, low tourist attendance, and entire events being postponed due to wildfire activity near Kamloops,” Christianson said, noting the dates were changed after feedback from the community.

While the decision to move Kamloops Pride Week up from its usual late August date coincides with International Pride month in June, it also aligns festivities in Kamloops with other pride week events in Kelowna (May 26 to June 1) and Vernon (June 2 to 8).

“We are excited to celebrate with our Pride neighbours, Kelowna and Vernon, as we celebrate Pride in the Thompson-Okanagan all month long,” Christianson said.

The full event lineup for Kamloops Pride Week festivities will be released later this year.