FERNDALE — The 15th anniversary of the Ferndale Pride festival came and went May 31 with more than 30,000 in attendance, according to the event director.

The city’s celebration of the LGBTQ+ community saw thousands of people visit downtown Ferndale for Pride to check out its vendors, listen to musical performances or see one of the many drag shows.

Looking back on the entire day, Event Director Julia Music said her favorite moment from Pride was when, on its dance stage, Stacey “Hotwaxx” Hale handed off her set to Rimarkable, which for Music was a beautiful moment to witness.

“Just seeing someone I had listened to since I was a child play at my age is really beautiful,” she said. “She just made the crowd go crazy. Like every age group was dancing and going crazy, and it was so packed over at the dance stage, and that was beautiful. And then also our drag show, our headliner on the other stage and then our closer all just kept the stages full. Both stages were full to a max capacity for four hours of people just dancing and having fun. It was just beautiful.”

Kira Russell, of Detroit, said what Pride means to her is to be proud of oneself and being who you are.

This was Russell’s second time attending Ferndale Pride. Russell, who identifies as bisexual, said she likes seeing everyone come together and be there to support the LGBTQ+ community.

“It’s very important, especially just with the youth and how much youth we have in the area, because when I was little, I think this being here was one of the main things that helped me be OK with coming out,” she said. “Just knowing that the area that I lived in and almost that the state that I lived in, it felt like I had some support from people and institutions.”

Russell attended Pride with her friend, Eli Edson, of Royal Oak. Edson, who identifies as a lesbian, said Pride means celebrating herself and her community, because it’s about showing who you are and accepting other people for who they are and having fun.

“People had to be so silent about it for so long, and with how ostracized they are then and now, especially with what’s going on with the presidency and the government, I think it’s really important to have a place where people can express themselves and to be themselves, even if it’s just for a couple hours a day, a couple days a week,” she said.

Music said it’s definitely more tiring now trying to organize the event as opposed to 15 years ago, but she’s also ready to begin planning next year’s festival to continue to raise money for charity.

As for what she thinks can be improved upon, Music said she’d like to help build back up the opening ceremony, as she felt the crowd was a little sparse this year.

“It’s hard to say what we can do better until we get critiques from other people,” she stated. “It wasn’t a year where we had anything really go wrong. I just have really awesome companies that we work with and a really fantastic crew. A lot of them are Ferndale residents and everyone wants this to happen. So, we’re able to make things happen quickly; like, we set up the whole event on the same day.

“The minor tuning at this point is very minor,” Music continued. “We’re already looking at who do we want as a headliner next year. We’re already focused on 2026. So I kind of have to just put it there and start working on that, and then we’ll listen to feedback, obviously, and we do a ton of fine-tuning every year.”