Looking around, there’s a crowd of people swarming the streets. On a cloudy, bleak summer day, colors fill the sky and bring a warm feeling to the melancholy day. People are overwhelmed with love and support.
The event of the day is the Columbus Pride Festival. However, this year the event has been pushed back to Sept. 18 due to COVID-19.
Junior Logan Frasier shares his thoughts on the Pride Festival and how it impacts him.
“It [Pride being pushed back] doesn’t really affect anything for me personally,” Frasier said. “If anything it probably helps because of the mask mandate and such. It does bring down the awareness of it happening a bit because people aren’t looking for it,” junior Connor Cheek said.
Cheek went to the festival in 2019 and loved it. She plans to go again this year.
“There were so many performers and drag queens everywhere. It made you feel awesome, accepted and loved,” Cheek said.
Frasier shares the same enthusiasm regarding the happiness and positive atmosphere at Pride.
“It was fun to see other people in the community that weren’t just schoolmates,” Frasier said. “It’s a fun environment and it’s very accepting.”
Cheek has had the opportunity to go to Pride outside of Columbus. The two events in different locations share both similarities and differences.
“I’ve been to Indianapolis Pride [and] that was fun,” Cheek said. “There were larger amounts of people. They had different things set up. You had to go to that, and to that, it wasn’t like your free will. You just had to do it. I like Columbus’ Pride better.”

Sophomore Blake Cooper has not had the opportunity to go Pride before, however, he plans to go this year. Cooper is part of Columbus North Choirs and they were invited to go to Pride and perform this year.
“I want to go because it’s the first year that I’ve been out,” Cooper said. “It’d be cool to go out and meet new people and celebrate it.”
Even though Cooper has not been to Pride before, the meaning behind pride as a whole means a lot to him.
“[Pride means] just being proud of who you are and learning how to not essentially let who you are set you back,” Cooper said. “Being able to push back the boundaries that have been set.”
Cheek understands why it is important for the community to have this time to gather now.
“I think it’s important to have something like this in a situation that we have right now because we’re not alone,” Cheek said. “You can see other people going through the same stuff that you are and can get help that they need or feel accepted.”
Frasier shares similar thoughts and explains why it is important for people with an outside perspective from the community.
“A lot of people don’t process how much that the queer community has gone through to get the rights we have now,” Frasier said.“I think it’s a great experience for everyone just to learn more and be more involved.”