Huntsville Texas Pride held a virtual pride event on Saturday over Zoom and Facebook Live to celebrate the local LGBTQIA+ community.

The organization found its start on a small Facebook group in June 2018, then gained nonprofit status in April 2019. On Sept. 1, Huntsville City Council released a proclamation stating Sept. 19 is the official Huntsville Texas Pride Day.

“I feel with Huntsville’s pride proclamation and people seeing us doing things in town, they might get curious and ask questions,” HTXP Director of Public Relations Madison Schackmuth said.

The organizers decided to keep people safe and hold pride virtual over Zoom. Zoom does limit how many people can be on a call , so the call was streamed over Facebook Live and YouTube.

“We just decided to go virtual and that way we can have as many people attend as we want, and we could have entertainers from all over come and perform,” Schackmuth said.

Huntsville Pride had performances from drag queens and local bands. The Pickets, a father son combo band that write and play their own country rock songs played at the event. City Freaks, a Texas based alternative metal trio, also performed their original music. Emerald Van Cartier and Anastasia Windsor, Texas drag entertainers, performed as well.

The pride event organizers hope to plan a bigger event for 2021.

“I’m going to take this event as a training field for a much larger in-person festival,” Schackmuth said.

For more information reach out to HTXP through Facebook and join their group for future events and to connect with the local LGBTQIA+ community.