BIG FREEDIA WILL HEADLINE NEW ORLEANS PRIDEFEST

NEW ORLEANS — Bounce queen and New Orleans icon Big Freedia will headline 2024’s New Orleans Pridefest with a special performance on the event’s mainstage on Saturday, June 8, 2024, event organizers announced Wednesday, April 24.

“We are thrilled to welcome Big Freedia back to New Orleans Pridefest. She is an icon of the LGBTQ community and someone we know definitely brings the party,” New Orleans Pridefest President Tracy Deroche said. Deroche chairs the Phoenix Phoundation, the nonprofit organization that produces New Orleans Pridefest.

Big Freedia last headlined New Orleans Pridefest in 2019. Her 2024 performance will cap a day full of entertainers from the LGBTQ community and its allies, celebrating the LGBTQ movement and its fight for equality. Pride celebrations take place in many cities across the United States and countries in June to commemorate the riots at the Stonewall Inn in New York City which occurred on June 28, 1969. Stonewall is often referred to as a pivotal event in the modern movement. 

Absolut Vodka, who has been a perennial supporter of New Orleans Pridefest and the New Orleans LGBTQ community, is partnering with the Phoenix Phoundation to sponsor Big Freedia’s mainstage headline performance.

Mainstage performances begin at 11 a.m. on the day of New Orleans Pridefest. Big Freedia will take the main stage in the afternoon. Deroche encourages attendees to come early to secure a place near the stage. “We had people show up right at the opening in 2019 to get a spot,” he said. “People rightly come out to support the Queen.”