{"id":538600,"date":"2026-01-24T04:06:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:06:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/538600\/"},"modified":"2026-01-24T04:06:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-24T04:06:10","slug":"phoenix-pride-emphasizes-stability-after-tucson-festival-cancellation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/538600\/","title":{"rendered":"Phoenix Pride emphasizes stability after Tucson festival cancellation"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\"><b>PHOENIX (AZFamily)<\/b> \u2014 Phoenix Pride is planning its 2026 calendar and preparing for its Rainbows Festival following this week\u2019s announcement that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/01\/22\/tucson-pride-festival-cancelled-organization-dissolve\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/2026\/01\/22\/tucson-pride-festival-cancelled-organization-dissolve\/\">Tucson Pride is canceling its 2026 festival and shutting down after 50 years<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cCommunity is the heartbeat of pride,\u201d said Mike Fornelli, executive director of Phoenix Pride. \u201cWhy Tucson was so shocking is because it was just announced.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">The announcement from Arizona\u2019s first and longest-running LGBTQ+ organization shocked many in the community. Tucson Pride cited financial challenges and declining sponsorships as reasons for dissolving the organization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fornelli said the struggles facing Tucson Pride are not unique to that organization.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWith all those DEI cuts and those funding cuts, it\u2019s a trickle-down effect, right?\u201d Fornelli said. \u201cSo there\u2019s still businesses, there\u2019s still companies to support, but now they don\u2019t have that money to be able to support the capacity that they could.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Similar challenges emerged in 2025 on the West Coast, when <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/2025-pride-celebrations-corporate-sponsor-cancellations\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.cbsnews.com\/news\/2025-pride-celebrations-corporate-sponsor-cancellations\/\">Anheuser-Busch, Comcast and Nissan pulled sponsorships from San Francisco Pride<\/a>, costing the organization hundreds of thousands of dollars.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">\u201cWe are working very diligently to make sure that does not happen,\u201d Fornelli said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Fornelli said Phoenix Pride is adjusting in response to the news out of Tucson to ensure the organization remains sustainable long term. The organization is planning quarterly town halls as part of its 2026 initiatives.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | article-text\">Tucson Pride said all funds received for the 2026 festival, including vendor fees and sponsorships, will be refunded within the next 90 days.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">See a spelling or grammatical error in our story? <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/page\/send-us-your-feedback\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Please click here to report it<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"text | text-start article-text\">Do you have a photo or video of a breaking news story? Send <a href=\"https:\/\/www.azfamily.com\/community\/user-content\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">it to us here<\/a> with a brief description.<\/p>\n<p class=\"copyright |\">Copyright 2026 KTVK\/KPHO. All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHOENIX (AZFamily) \u2014 Phoenix Pride is planning its 2026 calendar and preparing for its Rainbows Festival following this&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":538601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5131],"tags":[5229,5643,1587,7182,237951,237950,237953,5603,1589,7183,237948,237952,237949,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-538600","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-phoenix","tag-america","tag-arizona","tag-az","tag-azfamily","tag-lgbt-festival-arizona","tag-lgbt-in-arizona","tag-lgbt-news-arizona","tag-lgbtq","tag-phoenix","tag-phoenix-news","tag-phoenix-pride","tag-pride-festivals-in-arizona","tag-tucson-pride","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115948105454587390","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=538600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/538600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/538601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=538600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=538600"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=538600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}