A gully washer mid-afternoon on Saturday caused many of the vendors and organizations set up at the Henderson KY Pride ’26 to pull up stakes for the day.
But when the rain let up and things dried up, the celebration continued—and festival organizers say more than 2,000 people showed up.
That’s more than last year’s number when an estimated 1,600 people attended.
Henderson KY Pride Executive Director Cooper Beck said Saturday’s forecast changed five times throughout the day, and the inclement weather’s severity was surprising.
“How extreme it got was kind of a shock,” he said.
It also caused organizers to suspend the festival till 5 p.m., he said.
Still, he said there were more than 2,000 bracelets distributed to those at the festival, which is the organizers method to estimate attendance.
Musical guests took the stage set up on Main Street at 7 p.m. and they were followed by headliner, Jada Essence Hall, who Beck said was absolutely phenomenal” and acted like anything but a celebrity by walking through the crowd and greeting people.
He said the street was filled with people as well as the beer garden to watch the evening entertainment.
“It was a very good ending to a day that had a lot of stressors in it,” Beck said.
He said organizers are already discussing ways to improve next year’s festival, which will be held the last Saturday in June.
Also at the festival Saturday Henderson KY Pride announced the recipient of its second annual Janna Gatten Legacy Award, which recognizes those who embody the same spirit of service, inclusion and care for others as Gatten did. Janna Gatten was a Henderson Police Department officer who died in 2023.
This year’s recipient was the administration of Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear. Beshear did not attend Saturday’s festival but did send a video accepting the award.
In it, Beshear said he made a pledge to “fight every single day for every single Kentuckian.”
Beshear mentioned some of the ways he has supported the LGBTQ-plus community, including being the first Kentucky governor to recognize Pride month, signing an executive order banning conversion therapy on minors, and vetoing every piece of “anti-trans or anti-LGBTQ-plus” piece of legislation that has passed over his desk.
