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Snow rarely comes to mind when people think of LGBTQ+ Pride celebrations. Usually held in the summer months (most often June), some areas lean into their region’s unique traits to make their Pride festivities truly special.
Lauren Rose, board president of OUT Central Oregon, grew up in La Grande and has spent most of her life in Central Oregon. Though she’s been with the public charitable organization for only a year and a half, she’s seen the difference OUT Central Oregon makes organizing Winter PrideFest, the annual winter season LGBTQ+ Pride festival covering Crooks, Deschutes and Jefferson counties. Winter PrideFest returns to Bend on March 6–9 for a blend of indoor and outdoor community-building and entertainment.
The all-volunteer organization OUT Central Oregon uses funds raised over the four-day festival to support a dozen or so other area organizations, including the Pride festivals of Redmond and Prineville, and queer-friendly programming at Central Oregon Community College and the Bend-La Pine school district. Bend Pride Coalition organizes the city’s summertime Pride parties, while OUT Central Oregon takes on snowy celebrations. But the party atmosphere funds year-round activism to improve the lives of all queer Oregonians.
“One thing that makes Central and Eastern Oregon different from the west side of the state is that there is a real desert of support and resources here in the area,” Rose says. “There’s still a lot of work to do around making sure people have their health care needs met.”
When it started in 2018, Winter PrideFest was little more than a ski weekend between friends. In 2024, the festival drew roughly 1,500 people from as far away as Germany for outdoor activities like snow sports and a pool party at Campfire Hotel, and indoor activities that included a standup comedy show. RuPaul’s Drag Race alumnus Willam headlined the festival, alongside appearances by local and Portland-area queer entertainers. In 2025, Out Central Oregon plans to bring family-friendly activities to Winter PrideFest. Plans are still in the works, but attendees could see something like a family ice skating event.
“As someone who’s lived in Central Oregon for a long time,” Rose says, “I love seeing locals and visitors mixing and mingling, hanging out together.”
While there is some residual worry about agitators disrupting Winter PrideFest, Rose says homophobic and transphobic sentiments have cooled since the furor raised in conservative circles over Budweiser’s 2023 sponsorship of influencer Dylan Mulvaney, and the Oregon’s rural communities tend to be more “purple” and less extreme than in states like Tennessee, Florida and Idaho attempting to ban drag artists and transgender health care.
“That’s part of how visibility works; you still have to put yourself out there,” Rose says.
For 2025, Winter PrideFest will be immediately preceded by Bendi Gras, an expressly pro-LGBTQ+ Mardi Gras celebration organized by the Oregon-wide magazine Sus. Ruth Vernotico, Sus’ publisher, says bounce music legend Big Freedia headlines the three-day Bendi Gras party running Feb. 28–March 2, with festivities at such locales as Campfire Hotel, the Midtown Ballroom, and sites around Mount Bachelor.
With two back-to-back weekends of serious partying ahead, Rose isn’t worried about wearing down the community’s energy.
“Winter PrideFest is valuable because it’s an event held in the middle of winter when people are feeling the most isolated and hunkered down in their homes, whether it’s the weather or because it’s dark at 4:30 in the afternoon,” Rose says. “It has a lot of intrinsic value because people may have seasonal blues, and it reminds them that they’re not alone, they can go out and have a good time.”