Photo by KELLY ANNE PHOTOGRAPHY Signs and posters are common at Nashua Pride Festival celebrations. This year, a virtual celebration will take place Saturday, with an in-person event tentatively set for October. (Photo by KELLY ANNE PHOTOGRAPHY)

NASHUA – It’s almost impossible to find any upsides to the pandemic that claimed so many lives and disrupted many more, but it turns out it may have created an opportunity for the city to hold two Nashua Pride Festival celebrations in 2021.

Organizers have confirmed that the first celebration – a virtual event scheduled for Saturday – will be aired starting at 3 p.m. at www.facebook.com/NashuaPrideFestival, as well as on local cable access channels.

And if all goes well in the planning process, a “full, in-person parade and festival” will take place in early October, according to Great American Downtown executive director Paul Shea.

“Pride Month is here and Nashua is ready to celebrate!” Shea wrote in a post to the Great American Downtown website.

Describing the Nashua Pride Festival as “a free celebration of diversity, acceptance, music and fun focused on promoting equality and inclusion of all people,” Shea said Saturday’s virtual celebration will feature interviews with members of the local LGBTQIA – lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer, intersex, asexual – community, in which they will share personal stories and what Pride Month means to them.

Courtesy photo Some of the participants in a previous Nashua Pride Festival gathered for a group photo following the parade. This year, a virtual event will take place Saturday, with an in-person version tentatively set for October. (Courtesy photo)

Photos and videos of previous Nashua festivals will be shown between interviews, and Mayor Jim Donchess will share “a special message” and read a Pride Month proclamation, according to Shea.

The festival debuted in Nashua in 2018, and took place in 2019 before the pandemic forced it to go virtual in 2020.

In 2018, a rainbow flag was raised on the City Hall flagpole, and Donchess said Nashua “wants to show this is an inclusive city, and this is one of many ways to do that.”

For more information, such as details on how to donate to the event and how to view the virtual festival on Saturday, go to www.nashuanh.gov/1217/Nashua-Pride-Festival.

Dean Shalhoup may be reached at 594-1256 or dshalhoup@nashuatelegraph.com.

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