If you submitted an application to volunteer for Sparkle City Pride 2026 already, please check your email inbox and spam folder! Introduction emails have been sent to everyone who applied.
Interested in volunteering with Sparkle City Pride? Our event is only possible because of incredible volunteers who generously give their time and talents to serve our community. We are truly grateful for their willingness to help make this celebration a success.
We offer flexible volunteer opportunities with a variety of time slots, shift lengths, and placement options to fit different schedules and interests. Whether you can give a few hours or more, there is a place for you on our team.
Follow this link to sign up for a volunteer shift!
If you have any questions or need additional information regarding volunteering, please contact our Volunteer Coordinator, Becki Roberts, at becki.roberts.sc@gmail.com.
Thank you again for helping make Sparkle City Pride a welcoming, safe, and successful event for everyone!
Help Support Pride in Spartanburg! All proceeds go to building the annual March and Festival.
A festival is a large event and those never happen without funds. The Spartanburg Pride Coalition was honored to receive starting funds from the Spartanburg LGBT Fund, which have served as the bulk of our budget for our first Pride. Any further donations make the Pride March and Festival bigger and better and enable us to add elements we couldn't have afforded before. Thank you for your help!
WHEN: Saturday, November 7th, 2026, 11:00 AM - 4:00 PM
March at 11:00 AM
WHERE: The Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg, 210 East Henry Place, Spartanburg, 29306.
3:00-6:00 PM: All vendors, entertainers, and community organizations are welcome to come in early on Friday, Nov. 6 from 3:00-6:00 PM to set up booths and tables ahead of time. The church will be locked overnight.
The building will not be open earlier than 9:45.
10:00 AM: Interfaith service in Sanctuary.
10:30 AM: Begin lining up for the March in front of the church.
11:00 AM: March begins at church.
12:00 PM: Entertainment begins in Sanctuary.
4:00 PM: Good Night!
When you arrive, grab a Pride Guide from our Resource Cafe in the main level Fellowship Hall! Pride Guides will have detailed information about the day's schedule and a map of the building.
Entertainment will be brought to your by host Patti O’Furniture! This is still a tentative schedule and there may be changed made to exact times and performers.
Drag performers will be accepting tips during their performances! Bring $1 bills. We will have some change available. CASH IS PREFERRED.
An unofficial afterparty will be hosted at Ciclops Cyderi and Brewery! If you're still standing at the end of the day come join us!
The information below is subject to change as we receive details from community partners but should remain largely accurate.
There will be a team of volunteers familiar with the church and the surrounding area directing parking on the day of Pride. If you don't see a spot, flag down a volunteer and they will help you!
Upper Lot (PINK): The upper lot will be handicapped parking only on the day of the March and Festival. If you need it, please use it! If you don't need it, please consider parking further away.
The upper lot will be available for vendors and groups setting up their booths before the march. After unloading, we ask that you please move your vehicles to other spaces nearby so that the upper lot can be used for handicapped parking.
Parking in the upper lot will be frozen from 10:30 AM to 11:15 AM as we gather for and begin the March.
Lower Lot (ORANGE): The small lower lot like the upper lot will be preferential space for handicapped visitors or visitors with young children. Vendors may unload in lowert lot as well.
Southside Memorial Parking: The beautiful Southside Memorial has a few parking spaces and is very close to the church.
Local Business Lots (SUNFLOWER YELLOW): Most local businesses near UUCS are not open on Saturdays. We have already talked to them ahead of time and they are comfortable with us using their lots on Nov. 7. Some of these lots are a bit higgeldy-piggeldy, please be careful not to park anyone in!
Note that there are a handful of businesses in the area that do have Saturday hours—their lots are not highlighted in yellow here and we want to avoid parking in their lots so as not to disrupt their business.
Residential Street Parking: UUCS sits in a residential neighborhood! Street parking is available, but PLEASE remember that our neighbors need to be able to drive down their street, enter their driveways, and walk on their sidewalks. This is a community event and we want to act like a community.
Wheeler Road Cul de Sac (GREEN): This cul de sac may have some availability, but it will also be available to vendors who arrive early.
Kennedy Street Garage and Downtown Library: These locations are a few blocks away but feature abundant parking. If you can walk a few blocks, consider the Kennedy Street Garage as a good option.
Bethel United Methodist Church: Bethel has also kindly offered use of their parking lot at 245 S Church St, Spartanburg, SC 29306. They are a few blocks away from our venue, but if you have a bit of a walk in you, this is another good option.
Other City Parking: If you have a bit more of a walk in you, there are lots of free parking options in Spartanburg provided by our city. Check out their Downtown Parking Operations page to see all of the options.
The march will begin at the church grounds at 11:00 AM. If you are starting the march at the church with us, we will begin gathering at the front of the church at 10:45. Since it is a long march, please feel free to meet us Downtown and walk back with us!
Sparkle City Pride will feature a family picnic atmosphere on the church's green grounds. Our official 'family picnic' will take place at 1:50 PM, during the break in the Entertainment Schedule, but you can enjoy a picnic or quick lunch on the grounds at any time.
We were unable to secure permits for food vendors in our first year of hosting event. We encourage everyone to bring picnic baskets, bagged lunches, coolers, and food to share with family, old friends, and new friends. Water will be abundantly available in and around the building.
We will be selling bag lunches for $5 from the Wilde Hall Kitchen (lower floor, same hall as the vendors) starting at 12:00 PM for anyone who did not bring their own food. All bagged lunches will come with a sandwich, a drink, and chips.
CASH IS PREFERRED but card, tap, and cash will all be accepted. If you can throw a five dollar bill at us, we can throw a sandwich at you.
Sandwich options will be:
If you are interested in volunteering to help out on November 7th, follow this link to sign up for a volunteer shift! If you have issues with the form or have any additional questions just contact our Volunteer Coordinator at becki.roberts.sc@gmail.com.
The nonprofit organization that was hosting Pride in Greenville and Spartanburg announced in January of 2026 they would no longer host Pride in Spartanburg. The Spartanburg Pride Coalition formed when a few organizations already serving LGBTQ+ folks in Spartanburg pledged to get together and host Pride ourselves.
Essentially, the party is at our house now, but we haven’t hosted before! We ask for your patience and understanding as we get used to the new role.
The Spartanburg Pride Festival has been scheduled in the fall for many years to beat the heat of summer. When surveyed in 2026, folks in Spartanburg said that they wanted to continue having Pride in the fall instead of the summer. We also expressed a need to have our Pride on a reliable date, every year, so that we could plan on it. The Coalition chose the first Saturday in November because it tends to be nice, cool weather and because there are no other regular holidays or city events that happen on the first Saturday in November.
Many of us—in fact, nearly all of us—have been hurt by a church. We know this pain intimately at SPC. The Unitarian Universalist Church of Spartanburg is a welcoming, affirming church full of LGBTQ+ members and allies. It was the UUCS that planned and organized Spartanburg’s first Pride in 2009. You will be safe and protected at UUCS.
The coalition chose the church to host our second-first Pride partially because the church hosted Spartanburg’s very first Pride in 2009 and we loved the thought of honoring that history by having our second-first Pride celebration there again. Another reason it was chosen is that, since we are a brand new organization, we were short on both time and funds to make Pride happen in 2026. UUCS committed to being a potential venue immediately (and at the incredible discounted rate of 'nothing') while other venues put up many more barriers in the way. We are unlikely to remain at UUCS forever and hope to have bigger, more open venues with better parking options in the future.
Thank you to the folks at Spartanburg County Public Libraries for generously providing all of the photos on this page from their historical archives! All photographs on this page unless otherwise noted are sourced from the collections of the Spartanburg County Public Libraries.