Philadelphia’s 2025 Pride weekend will feature 600-foot Progress Pride flag, largest in U.S., organizers say
By Joe Brandt
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PHILADELPHIA (KYW) — The largest Progress Pride flag in the U.S. will return and be even larger in 2025 as Philadelphia’s LGBTQ+ community and allies gather for the Philadelphia Pride March and Festival.
Organizers with Philly Pride 365 have already announced a ton of plans for the kickoff weekend starting Friday, May 30, but more announcements are coming in the next one to two weeks, including performers, stage locations and food truck and vendor lists.
The group says this year’s Pride Month is extra special in Philadelphia — it marks 50 years since former Pennsylvania Gov. Milton Shapp signed an executive order making the Keystone State the first to prohibit discrimination toward LGBTQ+ state employees. The order was later expanded to include state contractors as well.
Advocates have called for the Pennsylvania Senate to pass the Fairness Act, a bill that ensures equal protections for LGBTQ+ Pennsylvanians.
When is the 2025 Philadelphia Pride Parade?
Pride Weekend in Philadelphia features several events leading up to the June 1 Pride March, not a parade.
Things kick off with the Pride Around the City event on Friday, May 30. During this event, the massive Progress Pride flag will make its way to several major landmarks around the city.
The flag will be 600 feet long this year, longer than an average Center City block. Last year’s 400-foot Pride flag stretched down all the steps at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, so it’ll be interesting to see how Pride Around the City handles the extra 200 feet of fabric!
The 600-foot flag will be the largest pride flag in Philly history and may set a record for the biggest pride flag in Pennsylvania. It was designed for the 2025 Philly Pride March and made in the state.
Saturday, the day after Pride Around the City, features the LUV (Legacy, Unity, Visibility Awards) and the Pride Promenade held at the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
Sunday’s Pride March will kick off from 6th and Walnut streets at 10:30 a.m. and end in the Gayborhood. Philly Pride 365 says the exact route is still being finalized and will be revealed closer to the date of the march.
The events this year have a new fiscal sponsor, the Urban Affairs Coalition.
Philadelphia Pride Festival is larger this year:
Following the march, the Philadelphia Pride Festival is happening from 12 p.m. to 7 p.m. The festival area will extend from Walnut Street down to Pine and from Juniper Street east to Quince Street.
The festival will feature entertainment zones with stages, a youth and family zone with drag story time, a “sober vibes zone” that’s alcohol-free, a sensory-friendly zone and the Sapphic Way.
There’s no admission or registration required to attend the festival, and food and drink are pay-as-you-go.
Watch out for road closure announcements closer to the event.
What is the Progress Pride Flag and how is it different from the traditional rainbow flag?
The most common rainbow Pride flag has six stripes: red, orange, yellow, green, royal blue and purple. The late activist Gilbert Baker is widely credited for creating this flag in 1978, originally with eight stripes. The redesign and cut to six stripes happened in part due to a shortage of commercially available pink fabric and a desire to keep the number of stripes even.
According to the Human Rights Campaign, the Progress Pride Flag features all the colors of the traditional flag with additional white, pink and light blue stripes to represent the transgender community, and black and brown stripes to represent LGBTQ+ people of color. The black stripe is also a memorial to the thousands of people who died during the HIV/AIDS epidemic, HRC says.
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