Some Pride weekends are built around parties, but others remind you that queer art has always been one of the most powerful ways LGBTQ+ communities tell their stories, preserve their history, and imagine new futures.
The City of West Hollywood’s annual WeHo Pride Arts Festival returns May 23–24 with two packed days of theater, poetry, film, performance art, workshops, live drawing, mariachi, literary chaos, and enough glitter-forward energy to sustain you through June.
Formerly known as One City One Pride, the festival has been championing LGBTQ+ artists since 2007, and this year’s lineup feels especially tuned into the current moment. It’s joyful, political, weird, vulnerable, sexy, funny, and deeply community-driven.
The festival unfolds primarily between the Los Angeles LGBT Center, the Renberg Theatre, and The Village Courtyard, turning WeHo into a roaming celebration of queer storytelling in all its forms.
🎟️Ticket information
The best part is all events are free to attend, though some programs require a ticket or reservation. Even without a ticket, there is plenty to explore and enjoy throughout the festival.
📅Saturday, May 23
8TPS’ This Is (How We) Love!
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
The festival opens with a performance piece exploring queer intimacy and connection through movement, storytelling, and experimental theater. Expect tenderness with teeth.
Pride Poets: Everyone Deserves a Poem
12:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. | The Village Courtyard
(also running May 24)
A roaming poetry activation where poets create custom poems for festivalgoers in real time. It’s part performance, part emotional ambush, and exactly the kind of thing WeHo does best.
Jen Cheng’s Queering Creative Flow with Play
12:30 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. | Los Angeles LGBT Center
Artist and facilitator Jen Cheng leads an interactive workshop designed to dismantle creative blocks through play, experimentation, and queer imagination.
Miguel Angel Reyes’ Live Model Drawing Workshop
1:30 p.m. – 6:45 p.m. | Los Angeles LGBT Center
(also running May 24)
A live figure-drawing experience that blends visual art practice with queer embodiment and community participation. Drop in, sketch, linger.
Chase Lounge’s Trans Futurism
3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
Artist Chase Lounge presents a visionary performance exploring trans identity, speculative futures, and radical joy through movement and multimedia.
Outfest’s Emerging Voices
3:00 p.m. – 7:00 p.m. | Los Angeles LGBT Center
(also running May 24)
The legendary Outfest spotlights up-and-coming queer filmmakers with screenings and conversations centered on the next generation of LGBTQ+ cinema.
Planet Queer’s Rainbow Riot
Varying Times | The Village Courtyard
(also running May 24)
A vibrant ongoing activation full of pop-up performances, immersive art, and playful queer spectacle. Think DIY cabaret energy meets Pride fever dream.
Literary Death Match: Pride Edition
5:15 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
The cult-favorite reading series gets a queer takeover, bringing together writers, performers, and judges for a delightfully unhinged literary showdown.
Celebration Theatre’s PURE GLITTER, LA Premiere Reading
7:30 p.m. – 9:45 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
Celebration Theatre presents the Los Angeles premiere reading of PURE GLITTER, a new theatrical work packed with camp, emotion, and queer theatricality.
📅Sunday, May 24
Jon Gentry’s Black Bastard
12:00 p.m. – 1:15 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
A solo performance from Jon Gentry blending personal storytelling, identity politics, and sharp humor into a powerful theatrical experience.
HIV Writers Workshop’s Write Out Loud Readings
1:30 p.m. – 2:45 p.m. | Los Angeles LGBT Center
Raw, intimate readings from writers living with HIV, centering resilience, truth-telling, memory, and survival.
Mazer Queer Shorts: Reel Lesbians on Film
3:00 p.m. – 4:15 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
Presented by the June L. Mazer Lesbian Archives, this screening celebrates lesbian cinema and archival storytelling through a curated shorts program.
Mariachi Arco Iris de Los Angeles’ Rainbow Mariachi Rhapsody
5:15 p.m. – 6:30 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
The world’s first LGBTQ+ mariachi ensemble, Mariachi Arco Iris de Los Angeles, closes out the afternoon with a performance full of romance, tradition, and Pride-season flair.
TNH Productions’ Brown & Out 8
7:30 p.m. – 9:45 p.m. | Renberg Theatre
The long-running queer Latinx showcase returns with comedy, storytelling, music, and performance celebrating intersectional queer voices across Los Angeles.
Whether you stay for a single workshop or spend the entire weekend venue-hopping through WeHo, the Pride Arts Festival offers something increasingly rare in Los Angeles – free access to genuinely adventurous queer art made by and for community.
📍 Where: Throughout WeHo
📆 When: May 23–24, 2026
