Hudsonville Pride returns for second year after initial success

HUDSONVILLE — The City of Hudsonville is gearing up for its second annual Pride Festival, hosted by Hudsonville Area Pride, a group formed from Ottawa Area Center for Pride and Inclusive Ottawa County. 

The festival, set for Saturday, July 11, from noon-6 p.m. at 4950 32nd Ave., Hudsonville, will feature drag performances, more than 60 vendors and a performance by singer-songwriter Baddie Brooks, who champions queer and trans voices. 

“We typically have a pretty extensive kids zone with lots of crafts and activities for kids to do in addition to really fun things like a bounce house,” said Christina Warholic, president of Ottawa Area Center for Pride and part of the leadership team for Hudsonville Pride. 

“We provide a sensory area,” explained Megan Shriver, secretary of Ottawa Area Center for Pride and also part of the leadership team for Hudsonville Pride, “and we also find it really important to give out water and electrolytes and just in general try to make it (Hudsonville Pride) a comfortable and really friendly place.” 

Last year, the first official Hudsonville Pride saw 1,500 attendees, more than Warholic or Shriver imagined. 

“I just remember standing there and looking at the parking lot and being like, ‘Oh my God, it's full,’” said Shriver. “It was a motivating factor to keep doing this, it was incredible to see how many people were there and were so complimentary and thankful that we were doing it.” 

A concern that is still on the minds of Shriver and Warholic but less so after the success of last year, is protestors. The Hudsonville Pride team last year conscientiously made decisions about how they released information about the Pride event due to worry about having protestors coming to the event. 

“We didn’t even tell people where they were going until a week before the event last year, so that definitely maybe limited the amount of people a bit. But we are hopeful to have a bigger turnout this year,” said Warholic. 

Overall last year, there was broadly positive feedback about the event, Warholic and Shriver told ONN. They did have negative feedback on social media, but Warholic pointed out that “there will always be people angry about events, and this one, of course, has some politicized components to it.”

To the organizers themselves overall, the point of putting on this event is all about belonging. 

“When I think about Pride, I think about belonging versus just inclusion, just acceptance, and so that’s what we are trying to create, we thought we could see the need for that,” explained Warholic.

For more information on Hudsonville Pride 2026, visit hudsonvilleareapride.com/about. For more information on Ottawa Area Center for Pride, visit ottawaareacenterforpride.org. 

— Mallory Burt is a reporter for Ottawa News Network. Contact her at newsroom@ottawanewsnetwork.org.