Now reported as the largest Pride festival in North America
Pride Toronto
Our bathhouse raids guide covers the 1981 police raids that sparked Toronto's first Pride march. This is the story of what that single march grew into: a multi-day festival now drawing millions of people every June.
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Our bathhouse raids guide covers the 1981 police raids that sparked Toronto's first Pride march — a "Lesbian and Gay Pride Day" that drew an estimated 1,500 participants. The event remained a loosely organized, community-run affair for several years before a coalition of community groups formally established it as an organization by the mid-1980s, eventually incorporating as Pride Toronto.
Millions of attendees
What began as a single march grew into a multi-day festival, typically running about a week and culminating on the last weekend of June, centred on Toronto's Church-Wellesley Village. Attendance figures reported by organizers show dramatic growth: roughly 1.7 million in 2019, and over 3 million by 2024. On the strength of those figures, Pride Toronto is frequently described as the largest Pride festival in North America and among the largest in the world.
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