Chicago Pride

Chicago's Pride Parade is a neighbourhood parade on a big-city scale. The first march, in 1970, was a protest, and the parade still runs through Northalsted, the city's long-established gay district, rather than downtown. That gives it a different feel from New York or San Francisco: rainbow bars along the route, apartment balconies full of parties, and hundreds of thousands of people packed into a few miles of Lakeview streets. It's organized by PRIDEChicago, a volunteer-run nonprofit.

The parade steps off at 11am on Broadway and runs south along Halsted Street through Northalsted, then east on Belmont, south on Broadway and east on Diversey to finish near Lincoln Park, roughly two miles in all. Watching is free, and you can see it from anywhere along the route. The bars on Halsted run ticketed or cover-charge parties all day, and many fill to capacity early. Don't confuse it with Chicago Pride Fest, a separate street festival on Halsted run by the local business alliance, usually the weekend before.