Orange County Pride’s annual festival is returning to downtown Santa Ana this year — a move organizers say has been met with “overwhelming support” and is shaping up to make October’s homecoming celebration the biggest event they’ve held yet.
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This year’s festival will be held Oct. 10, with free admission open to all members of the public.
“We’re so excited to show everybody what we’ve been working on all year. It’s going to be a great day; I’m very much anticipating it,” Orange County Pride Executive Director Bryan Terry said. “This is probably going to be the most jam-packed festival we’ve ever thrown — which is the exact opposite of what we were trying to do in the beginning.”
Community feedback gathered earlier this year made it clear that attendees wanted organizers to find a way back to Santa Ana, the group said. The festival’s first event was in Centennial Park in 1989 and it was hosted downtown for years before relocating to Costa Mesa’s OC Fair & Event Center in 2024.
Ever since OC Pride announced the move back to downtown Santa Ana (DTSA), organizers said they’ve received an “overwhelming outpour of community support” from local businesses, local nonprofits, and other organizations, including what organizers described as the most applications for volunteer entertainment OC Pride has ever received. Applications are also being taken for the annual parade.
“Everyone wanted to be involved,” said Terry. “And so it’s kind of snowballed a little bit.”
“Our Voices All Combined,” the theme of this year’s festival, is about the power of coming together, said OC Pride Board President Brandon Chavez, who pointed to the diverse intercultural and intergenerational experiences and identities that make up the community. “We don’t all have the same story, but we don’t have to. Our strength comes from bringing those voices together and making space for every one of them.”
Organizers also described the festival layout as their take on Disneyland’s themed attractions, with each zone built to cater to a specific corner of the LGBTQ+ community.
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Alongside the main Pride Stage and the Agoyo Latin Stage, organizers have added three additional performance spaces. The Rainbow Commons, new this year, is reserved for up-and-coming community acts, while the returning Sapphic Oasis takes a step beyond its past lounge-style setup with full programming, including a book swap, hosted at Native Son Bar, located above the Frida Theater.
Rounding out the lineup is Transcentral, the festival’s trans-focused space inside 4th Street Market, which will offer a more intimate slate of acoustic and spoken-word performances. Programming across the stages will also nod to Queer History Month and to Halloween.
Eric Pineda, a 33-year-old Westminster resident, said one of his first experiences with Pride was in Santa Ana. “To be part of it, knowing that it’s back in Santa Ana, is a big deal to me, because I get to not only showcase my friends but showcase how queer and safe Santa Ana can be.”
A promoter, Pineda runs Solita the Party, a queer dance event series featuring drag shows as the main event. He said he started Solita after watching many of his friends drive over an hour to find entertainment gigs, wanting instead to support their art and the local community he was building.
“It gives me a lot of pride and joy to know that we are still being seen and still very visible in 2026,” he said.
Headlining the Pride Stage this year will be Charo, “America’s Got Talent” alum Mama Duke and Chris Conde, a queer New York rapper.
The festival will officially wrap at 10 p.m., but Terry said the night won’t end there: attendees can join an after-festival bar crawl through DTSA, with Native Son, Chapter One, Queens Lounge, Club 616, and Mission Bar already signed on.
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