The New Queens Pride 2025: parade, festival, hotels

In the bustling borough of Queens, New York–one of the most ethnically diverse places on Earth–Pride takes on a distinctly multicultural flair. The New Queens Pride 2025 (often simply called Queens Pride) will light up the neighborhood of Jackson Heights on Sunday, June 1, 2025.

Marking the 33rd year of Queens’ Pride parade and festival, this event has recently rebranded as “The New Queens Pride” under fresh leadership to emphasize inclusivity and community focus. What remains constant is Queens Pride’s mission since 1993: to celebrate visibility and equality in the outer boroughs.

Expect a vibrant parade along 37th Avenue featuring local LGBTQ+ groups and cultural organizations, followed by a lively multicultural festival that feels like a neighborhood block party, complete with global cuisine, music in many languages, and families dancing in the streets!

New Queens Pride Parade

The Queens Pride Parade steps off around 12:00 PM on June 1, 2025. The route runs down 37th Avenue from 89th Street to 75th Street in the heart of Jackson Heights–a bustling immigrant community.

This parade is free to view and family-friendly. Over 40 contingents typically march, a mix of floats, marching bands (yes, sometimes a Colombian folkloric band or an LGBT+ mariachi group joins the lineup!), local high school GSAs, city employee groups, and activists. You’ll see rainbow flags alongside flags of dozens of nations. Queens Pride consciously honors the heritage of its participants; for example, a large contingent of Latinx LGBTQ+ groups often carry flags from Ecuador, Mexico, and more, reflecting the neighborhood’s demographics.

The parade is not enormous (nothing like Manhattan’s), but tens of thousands of spectators do come out, from local residents lining the sidewalks to visitors from all over NYC who treasure the intimate, community vibe.

A beloved tradition is the “Practically Speaking” drumline that often leads the parade with thunderous rhythms. It really gets the crowd hyped!

How to Get There

Arrive by subway if you can (take the 7, E, F, M, or R train to 74th St-Broadway/Roosevelt Ave – you’ll be right at the parade start). Streets will be closed to cars by 10 AM. 

If you want the densest crowd energy, stand by 37th Ave & 77th St (near Diversity Plaza) which is around mid-route and close to the festival site, so people gather thick there. For a quieter viewing, the early blocks near 89th St are less crowded.

Queens Pride Multicultural Festival

When the parade finishes, the celebration continues at the Queens Pride Multicultural Festival. This street festival is set up on 37th (often nicknamed Diversity Plaza) and the adjoining streets off 75th Street. It runs roughly until 6 PM and is free.

Imagine a fair that feels like a snapshot of Queens: you’ll wander past booths of Colombian empanadas, Filipino lumpia, and South Asian curries, all while hearing a Spanish salsa band performing live on stage followed by a Bollywood dance troupe, then a K-pop cover group. Queens Pride deliberately programs a cultural mix of entertainment. There are usually two stages: the Main Stage (with pop, drag, dance, and speeches) and the Club Stage or review stand (with DJs and more local performers).

In 2024, highlights included a Caribbean steelpan band, a voguing showcase from the Kiki ballroom scene, and a bilingual drag set that flipped between English and Hindi songs. For 2025, expect similarly rich programming.

Queens Pride also honors its roots: it began in response to a hate crime in 1990 against Julio Rivera, a gay Puerto Rican Jackson Heights resident. Thus, each year there’s usually a moment of remembrance or a community grand marshal honoring that legacy.

The festival has a family-friendly area with face painting for kids, and local LGBTQ orgs (like Queens Center for Gay Seniors, immigrant support groups, PFLAG chapters) host informational booths. Compared to Manhattan’s corporate-heavy PrideFest, Queens’ vendor tables are more grassroots (think local LGBTQ-owned businesses, handmade Pride merch, and community services). And the food! Queens Pride arguably wins for best Pride food: treat yourself to something like an arepa or Thai rolled ice cream from the street vendors!

History and “The New” Queens Pride

Queens Pride has an important origin: it started in 1993, in the wake of the murder of Julio Rivera and to increase LGBTQ+ visibility in Queens (which, at the time, had fewer out gay officials or public events). The first parade drew 1,000 people. Now, tens of thousands attend, and Queens elected officials, including the borough president and city council members, march proudly.

It’s the second-oldest Pride in NYC, after Manhattan’s, showcasing over three decades of resilience. The “New” branding came when a new committee took over from the original Pride organizers with a desire to revitalize Queens Pride with fresh energy and broader community input.

The New Queens Pride Committee, supported by local LGBTQ network groups, has doubled down on making Pride inclusive of the diverse ethnic and immigrant communities of Queens. Hence the heavy emphasis on it being a multicultural festival, not just by name, but in action. For example, in 2023, a group of LGBTQ+ Ukrainian refugees who had settled in NYC marched carrying Ukraine’s flag. In 2024, a large trans-Latina group danced the traditional cumbia in the parade. This blending of cultural pride with LGBTQ pride sets Queens apart.

The Pride parade route itself (37th Ave) passes by where Julio Rivera was killed (37th Ave & 78th St); there’s a street sign co-named after him. Pride each year implicitly honors that history, celebrating how far the neighborhood has come from hostility to festivity.

Where to Stay for New Queens Pride

Visiting the city for the New Queens Pride celebrations? Check out our carefully curated selection of gay-friendly hotels in New York City and book your stay now!