Pride Week (Toronto)

Pride Toronto

The official logo of Pride Toronto
Type	festival organization based in Toronto, Ontario
Legal status	active
Purpose	advocate and public voice, educator and network
Headquarters	Toronto
Region served	Toronto
Executive director	Olivia Nuamah
Website	Pride Toronto

Pride Toronto is a ten-day event held in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, during the end of June each year. It is a celebration of the diversity of the LGBT community in the Greater Toronto Area. It is one of the largest organized gay pride festivals in the world, featuring several stages with live performers and DJs, several licensed venues, a large Dyke March, a Trans March and the Pride Parade. The centre of Pride Week is the city's Church and Wellesley village, while the parade and marches are primarily routed along the nearby Yonge Street, Gerrard Street and Bloor Street. In 2014, the week served as the fourth international WorldPride, and was much larger than standard Toronto Prides.

Pride Week is organized by Pride Toronto, a non-profit organization. A small complement of seven staff support the work of 19 festival teams and six advisors; each team is responsible for an aspect of the festival. Each team is administered by two or three volunteer team leads. The long-term vision for, and strategic oversight of, the organization and the festival is managed by 12 volunteers on the board of directors.

The organization's current executive director is Olivia Nuamah. She was appointed in February 2017 to succeed Mathieu Chantelois, who led the organisation from 2015 to 2016.

Main events of Pride Week include the Dyke March and the Pride parade. Although a definitive count of attendees cannot be determined, estimates in recent years have ranged from 500,000 to over one million for the entire week, and about 100,000 for the parade itself. The festival is often touted as being one of the largest cultural festivals in North America and the 22 city blocks that make up the festival site is closed to vehicular traffic.

Toronto's Pride Week evolved out of the mass protests that followed the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids, and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005. In the 2005 parade, newly appointed Toronto police chief Bill Blair became the first chief of police in the city's history to personally take part in the parade. He marched alongside politicians of all parties, including several federal and provincial cabinet ministers and Mayor David Miller.