San Diego Pride Celebration To Begin Friday

The festivities begin tomorrow as pride begins three days of celebration. Tomorrow's rally and block party are followed by Saturday's pride parade one of the biggest parades in the country. Than a music festival and parties through the weekend. Organizers are hoping for one of the biggest and best pride events this year but there could be some clouds on the horizon as parades across the country have been challenged to become more inclusive and political. Joining me now is a new executive director Eric Heinritz. You were previously the executive director of pride in Milwaukee but this is your first pride event here. What differences have you noticed between the two events? The events are very similar. I will say that one difference is a difference in the amount of connection that we have with local politicians. We have these and support in Milwaukee but here it was learned that there were very connected with our organization. What are the highlights or some of this years event? This year we have 270 contagions. We are working hard to make sure the parade goes efficiently. It won't be longer in duration. We have for the first time ever 50 liter groups coming together and leaving the front of our parade. So there will be representation from all types of churches locally and across the state. Another highlight of the parade is 15 music groups came together to bring over 176 students for youth marching band. That will be in the parade this year. You have more people marching. Are you expecting to see more people watching? Usually there's 100,000 people. Are you anticipating record numbers? Our ticket sales for the music festivals are up 25%. I think Wii do expect to see more people possibly this year. The theme is allied in action United for justice. What are the issues of the LGBT community. Wheat work year-round so we are more than just a party that we are throwing this weekend. Will use that to help us advocate for the needs of the committee. There is a number of issues to use related to trans and people of color, homelessness and access to healthcare and any other kind of education and resources that we can provide wherever Wii find there's a gap that isn't being served Wii reach out and try to do that ourselves. There's been growing criticism about events that they are not as inclusive of minorities and the specific challenges of LGBT minorities. What have you done to address that? We've been reaching out to more more groups trying to make sure that are bent is as accessible as possible. I think the diversity that you will see is more diverse than ever. Black Lives Matter is one of our contagions with us. There's the Black Panther group and another thing that we did this year is we get tickets out to community organizations that serve marginalize people specifically we made sure that they had access to our tickets to distribute for free to people so that they could come join the event and be part of it. You know in Washington DC the pride parade was shut down for about an hour because of activists. There has been some talk that there is potential political protest in San Diego. Do expect that will happen? Likely to every year we've been working closely with authorities to ensure that the event is safe for all of our attendees. Way do that to ensure the safety whether they are here to celebrate or here to highlight the challenges. We want to have a safe event. We have no known protests of our pride parade. Every year there will be people rallying in different groups in different signs along the route and near the entrance. That is nothing new. Do you see pride as inherently political or would you like it to be just seen as a celebration? I think the events -- I would like the event to be seen as a celebration. As an organization, we are not political in the sense that where supporting any specific side of the political parties. Wii to work closely with all the local politicians on both sides to help fulfill our mission. Will use them as a resource to make changes we think changes need to happen and that is usually at the political level. Not necessarily this weekend? No. To have tips for people planning to attend? The parade is a huge event. Parking will be virtually nonexistent. What should you do to go and not pull your hair out? Leave home early . We will everyone to get down to both the parade and music festival each day to avoid the congestion that will happen later on. Other options are to bike and walk. Use public transportation or writer with Uber. There's also a free shuttle for the music festival to and from the festival with parking. Thank you very much. I've been speaking with Eric Heinritz . Have a great time. Thank you very much.