Organizers of the WorldPride 2025 celebration coming to the D.C. region on May 31 through June 8 are reevaluating their attendance expectations, especially among international participants.
Event organizers have anticipated upwards of 2 million visitors for the LGBTQ community celebration, but with foreign travel to the U.S. plunging amid reports of visitors being detained and the Trump administration barring changes to the gender marker on passports, they may not meet that figure — another potential setback for an economy already facing multiple headwinds.
Right now, year-over-year bookings for the D.C. region’s hotels for the festival period show an increase, but the local planning committee is waiting to see what closer-in bookings look like before they have a firm grasp on what to expect.
A trend either up or down in late bookings “will impact not only D.C. hotels, but throughout the entire area,” Ashley Smith, board president of the Capital Pride Alliance, told the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (COG) at its meeting yesterday (Wednesday).
The Capital Pride Alliance is the local organizer of the festival, which is generally held every two years at different host cities around the world in conjunction with local Pride events. WorldPride is coordinated and licensed by InterPride, a coalition of 375 LGBTQ organizations in 70-plus countries.
Ryan Bos, executive director of the Capital Pride Alliance, said he isn’t surprised some people remain on the fence about attending.
“Our community is living in fear right now,” he told COG members.
On the festival website, organizers say they’re “working on a range of programs and measures to ensure” that safety is prioritized and attendees feel “safe and welcome here.”
To boost confidence, Bos said they “are making changes to the festival, having it fenced with gated entry, creating safe spaces.” However, the festival is also considering warning transgender travelers about the risks they may face visiting the U.S., given the current presidential administration’s hostility toward trans and nonbinary people.
At the COG meeting, Bos said the warning was only a possibility being considered, but he subsequently confirmed to the Washington Business Journal that Capital Pride Alliance will release a statement advising trans individuals to “review any travel advisories issued by their home country” before visiting the U.S.
In addition to a potential dropoff in attendance, WorldPride organizers are grappling with skittishness among some sponsors — a trend that has also affected other LGBTQ Pride events across the country.
The Tysons-based technology contractor Booz Allen Hamilton withdrew its WorldPride 2025 sponsorship in February after scrapping its diversity, equity and inclusion programs and reportedly scrubbing posts expressing support for the LGBTQ community and previous Pride festivals from its website and social media feeds.
According to the Financial Times, Booz Allen Hamilton is one of 10 prominent consulting groups to recently receive a letter from the Trump administration threatening to cancel billions of dollars worth of contracts after their proposals for “savings” were deemed “insulting.”
Though he didn’t mention any specific companies, Bos told COG that other corporate WorldPride sponsors have followed Booz Allen’s lead.
“We are having others who are choosing not to participate this year who have participated for many many years, which is extremely disappointing,” Bos said. “We also have had sponsors who want to support us, and they still are, but they don’t want to be visible.”
Charles Allen, a member of the D.C. City Council who serves on the COG board of directors, said he was “deeply disappointed” in those businesses scaling back support.
“I would attribute it completely to the change in [presidential] administration,” he said.
Allen promised that local jurisdictions will maintain their support.
“You’ve got partners in this room that want to be right there with you,” he said to organizers.
Faced with potentially reduced international visitation, City of Fairfax Mayor Catherine Read suggested the festival use technology to put itself in front of a global audience.
“You can take a deficit and turn it into an asset,” she said, “basically encouraging people to ‘Pride where they are.'”
“If it’s not safe for people to come here, then we should raise up whatever people are doing in their own communities, wherever they are in the world,” Read said.
Festival organizers have projected an economic impact of nearly $790 million for the region, a shot in the arm as the ongoing downsizing of the federal government threatens already-precarious local and state budgets.
Though WorldPride events will be centered in D.C., the festival will have a positive economic impact across the region, Smith said.
The region was selected as the 2025 host, in part, because this year is the 50th anniversary of the first Pride celebration in D.C. It’s the second time a U.S. city has hosted the gathering, which launched in Rome, Italy, in 2000 and visited New York City in 2019 to mark 50 years since the Stonewall uprising.
While the D.C. festival will formally kick off May 31 with a concert featuring Shakira at Nationals Park, related activities are set to start on May 16. A June 7 parade is among the events planned during the closing weekend.
