Community Safety at Pride 2025

This year’s Pride Festival will see significant changes from previous years, and the Planning Committee would like to share some of the changes we are making to ensure a safe and fun event for the community.  Some of these changes are needed due to the size of our event – we are now one of the largest Pride celebrations in the Northwest!  Others are necessary in order to prevent disruption to the festival in the form of aggressive and offensive hecklers, among other challenges facing the organization.   

We encourage you to have patience with our all-volunteer team (no one gets paid to produce Pride, and we need more volunteers!) and with each other as we navigate and implement these adjustments.  Here are a few things you can expect:

• Gated entry with tickets required for attendance: This will ensure we can enforce a code of conduct (no amplified sound, no large signs, no harassing attendees, etc.) and prevent disruption at our Main Stage and other areas of the festival. These aggressive interlopers were especially disruptive to the Veteran’s Village and HIV testing site for more than three hours last year, causing significant harm to the community.  This disruption will not be possible with gated entry, and this is the only way we can keep these folks out of the Festival. Tickets will be on a sliding scale, $1-$20, and no one will be turned away due to inability to pay.

• A clear bag policy: Like every other large, gated event in Lane County, clear bags will be required.  Small clutches will be allowed, and we will publish the full policy around bags soon.  This is both to help mitigate an active shooter situation as well as to prevent disruptors from bringing amplified sound into the event.

• Indoor/Outdoor experience: Excessive heat and wildfire smoke are now common occurrences during an Oregon summer. Having an indoor/outdoor experience will allow folks space to cool off, get out of the smoke, and avoid the rain.  We will have KN95 masks at the festival entrance available to attendees. 

• Expanded security team: We will have more security staff to support festival organizers in keeping everyone safe.

• Digital Security: For those who are not comfortable purchasing a ticket online prior to the event, attendees will be able to do so in cash at the door without sharing any personal data.

  
  

This list is not comprehensive, and we will continue to provide details as they are decided.

We are creating an entirely new event from scratch two months earlier than our usual date in response to community feedback, along with other factors. Again, we ask for patience and understanding as we navigate these challenges, especially in the current sociopolitical environment. Our first priority is keeping everyone safe.

In Community,

Eugene/Springfield Pride Festival Planning Committee