Have Some Pride

Here are all the ways to celebrate your Pride in Dallas-Fort Worth

The Dallas skyline is ready to rainbow.

Joseph Haubert

The month of June is designated as Pride Month to celebrate the LGBTQ+ community, and various groups and businesses around Dallas-Fort Worth are showing their support in a multitude of ways.

Here's our list of the best ways we've found for members of community and allies to participate in Pride Month in style. We start with the festivities that are running June 3-4, followed by other celebrations that will occur all month long.

Dallas Pride Weekend
June 3-4: Start the month off right at the biggest official celebration taking place at Fair Park. This annual event, which used to be in the Oak Lawn area before moving to Fair Park in 2019, includes a music festival featuring headliner Allison Ponthier on Saturday; the Alan Ross Texas Freedom Parade on Sunday; plus other activities celebrating the LGBTQ community.

Pride Day at Reunion Tower
June 3-4: The little ball in the downtown Dallas sky is celebrating Pride month, too. It'll kick off on June 3 with a splendid rainbow flag show that'll run all weekend long, and will continue to pop up during the month with dynamic rainbow displays on most Fridays and Sundays in June.

"Party with the Queens” Pride Brunch at El Chingon
June 3, 2-4 pm: El Chingon, Fort Worth’s “Bad Ass Mexican” restaurant, will host an exclusive “Pride Brunch” as part of its recurring “Party with the Queens” series. The brunch will feature live drag performances, mimosa specials, and more.

Pride Pool Party at Adolphus Hotel
June 3, 7 am-11 pm: Pool Adolphus at Adolphus Hotel in downtown Dallas will host an all-day Pride Pool Party, featuring colorful cocktail specials, rainbow Jell-O shooters, and a local DJ.

Lakewood Brewing Co. presents Pride Vendor Fair + Yas Queen! ReleasePride Vendor Fair + Yas Queen! Release
June 3, 12-4 pm: Lakewood Brewing Co. will host a party at its taproom with Wandering Roots Markets celebrating the release of Yas Queen, a taproom-exclusive Raspberry Wheat ale. There will also be Pride Vendor Fair featuring local artists and vendors, as well as on-site flash tattoos.

Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum presents “Voices of LGBTQ+ Dallas”
June 7, 7 pm. The Dallas Holocaust and Human Rights Museum is hosting “Voices of LGBTQ+ Dallas,” a special exhibition program for Pride Month highlighting trailblazers in the Dallas area LGBTQ+ community. The program featuring speakers such as Chris Luna and Naomi Green is already sold out, but the Museum’s current special exhibition, Rise Up: Stonewall and the LGBTQ Rights Movement, is on display through June 18.

Arttitude presents OutLoud: A Night of Pride
June 8, 6 pm: OutLoud: A Night of Pride is an inclusive event where artists and performers can fearlessly share their stories and experiences. The event will include poetry, burlesque, and a music performance by special guest Gina Chavez. At the Latino Cultural Center.

Dallas Wings Pride Night
June 9, 7 pm: Pride Night for the Dallas Wings of the WNBA. They'll be taking on the Phoenix Mercury, who feature Brittney Griner as their star player. All attendees at College Park Center in Arlington will receive a special rally towel for the occasion.

Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden presents Pride in Bloom
June 10-11: Dallas Arboretum and Botanical Garden will highlight Pride Month with its second Pride in Bloom celebration, featuring a full weekend of LGBTQ+ artisans, entertainers, chefs, and small businesses. Visitors can shop items at the vendor market, pack or purchase a picnic, listen to live entertainment, and enjoy Gary Lee Price’s Great Contributors’ bronze exhibition. Admission to the Children’s Adventure Garden will also be free.

Dallas Arts District presents Pride Block Party
June 16, 6 pm: The Pride Block Party in the Dallas Arts District features a variety of activities at the Dallas Museum of Art, Nasher Sculpture Center, and Crow Museum of Asian Art, and throughout the district. Activities include gallery tours, drag performers, comedy, dancing, and a fashion show.

Dallas Comedy Club presents "Stand-Up for Hope"
June 17, 5 pm: Stand-Up for Hope is a stand-up comedy show featuring all-LGBTQ performers and benefiting Dallas Hope Charities, which helps provide food, shelter, and services that instill dignity, stability, and Hope For All. Hosted by Stefan Newman, host of Queer Factor, the event will feature performances by Kim Wadsworth,Kerry Day, Charlotte Parker, Lucia Hardaway, and Jamie Zeske.

Ride for Pride
June 24, 9 am: Ride for Pride is a four-mile bike ride down the Katy Trail and back, starting at Reverchon Recreation Center. There will also be Health and Safety fair from 10 am-2 pm.

Monthlong celebrations

Pride Month screenings at Rooftop Cinema Club
Rooftop Cinema Club on top of the Worthington Renaissance Hotel in downtown Fort Worth will screen a variety of films with LGBTQ+ themes or characters throughout the month of June, including Mamma Mia!, Everything Everywhere All at Once, The Birdcage, Moulin Rouge!, The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and The Devil Wears Prada.

Special Pride drink from Gong cha
Gong cha, which has seven stores in the DFW area, will donate a portion of every purchase of their special Lemon Ai Love Yu bubble tea to the National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA) in name of #Equalitea. The special Pride drink is a sweet and tart Lemon Ai Love Yu bubble tea with white pearls and (edible) glitter for some extra festive sparkle. The limited time promotion will run through June 30.

Luckys Pride Celebration
A Dallas institution off Oak Lawn Avenue for more than 35 years, Luckys has long been a supporter of the LGBTQ community. They'll celebrate Pride Month throughout June with a special commemorative T-shirt and a celebratory cocktail, the Pride ’Rita, featuring El Jimador Blanco tequila blended with Chambord, lime juice, and agave nectar.

Electric Shuffle Pride Brunches
Every Sunday in June starting at 12 pm, Electric Shuffle in Deep Ellum will host a Drag Brunch and donate 10 percent of those brunch sales to DIFFA. There will be big-name performers, a Drag Race Royalty special guest, high-tech shuffleboard, live DJs, and more. Additionally, $1 of each purchase of their new summer cocktail, the Prickly Pear Margarita, will be donated to DIFFA.

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Movie Review

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first but not by much

Blumhouse

Five Nights at Freddy's 2

Blumhouse Productions first made their name with the Paranormal Activity series, establishing themselves as a leader in the horror genre thanks to their relatively cheap yet effective movies. In recent years, they’ve added on “soft” horror films likeM3GAN and Five Nights at Freddy’s to draw in a younger audience, with both films becoming so successful that each was quickly given a sequel.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 finds Mike (Josh Hutcherson) and his sister Abby (Piper Rubio) still recovering from the events of the first film, with Abby particularly missing her “friends.” Those friends just so happen to be the souls of murdered children who inhabit animatronic characters at the long-defunct Freddy Fazbear’s Pizza, children who were abducted and killed by William Afton (Matthew Lillard).

A new threat emerges at another Freddy Fazbear’s location in the form of Charlotte, another murdered child who inhabits a creepy large marionette. Mike, distracted by a possible romance with Vanessa (Elizabeth Lail), fails to keep track of Abby, who makes her way to the old pizzeria and inadvertently unleashes Charlotte and her minions on the surrounding town.

Directed by Emma Tammi and written by Scott Cawthon (who also created the video game on which the series is based), the film tries to mix together goofy elements with intense scenes. One particular sequence, in which the security guard for Freddy Fazbear’s lets a group of ghost hunters onto the property, toes the line between soft and hard horror. That and a few others show the potential that the filmmakers had if they had stuck to their guns.

Unfortunately, more often than not they either soft-pedal things that would normally be horrific, or can’t figure out how to properly stage scenes. The sight of animatronic robots wreaking havoc is one that is simultaneously frightening and laughable, and the filmmakers never seem to find the right balance in tone. Every step in the direction of making a truly scary horror film is undercut by another in which the robots fail to live up to their promise.

It doesn’t help that Cawthon gives the cast some extremely wooden dialogue, lines that none of the actors can elevate. What may work in a video game format comes off as stilted when said by actors in a live-action film. The story also loses momentum quickly after the first half hour or so, with Cawthon seemingly content to just have characters move from place to place with no sense of connection between any of the scenes.

Hutcherson (The Hunger Games series), after being the true lead of the first film, is given very little to do in this film, and his effort is equal to his character’s arc. The same goes for Lail, whose character seems to be shoehorned into the story. Rubio is called upon to carry the load for a lot of the movie, and the teenager is not quite up to the task. A brief appearance by Skeet Ulrich seems to be a blatant appeal to Scream fans, but he and Lillard only underscore how limited this film is compared to that franchise.

Five Nights at Freddy’s 2 is better than the first film, but not by much. The filmmakers do a decent job of making the new marionette character into a great villain, but they fail to capitalize on its inherent creepiness. Instead, they fall back on less effective elements, ensuring that the film will be forgettable for anyone other than hardcore Freddy fans.

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Five Nights at Freddy's 2 opens in theaters on December 5.

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