OC Pride

The first Orange County Cultural Pride Festival was held in 1989 when on September 9, over 2,000 people gathered within Centennial Park in Santa Ana. They were met with hostility from Christian groups, leading to clashes during the event. The following year, the event was moved to the campus of UC Irvine, where it remained until 2001 when it happened for the last time.

OC Pride was brought back in 2009 with a pride picnic that brought 500 people together in Irvine, followed in 2010 by the first OC pride festival in a decade. It took place at Hidden Valley in Irvine, with 1,500 participants.

OC Pride returned to Santa Ana in 2012 with 10,000 attendees. In 2015 the event became an entire week of celebrations and is now the largest LGBT event in Orange County, with more than 25,000 attendees participating in the event in Downtown Santa Ana.