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The Do List

5 Essential Parties for Your SF Pride 2022 Weekend

Nastia Voynovskaya
Get your look together and prepare your dollar bills to tip your performers.
Crowd with drag queen and furry in dog costume at center
Juanita MORE!'s Pride party in 2021. (Gooch)

Whether or not you’re going to the official San Francisco Pride Parade on June 26, the Dyke March on June 25 or the Trans March on the June 24, there’s so much to see and do all of Pride weekend in the Bay Area. It’s practically a holy time for the queer and trans LGBTQ+ nightlife scene—the marathon that DJs, performers, go-go dancers and drag artists train for all year. So get your look together, and prepare your dollar bills for tipping. These are the parties you need on your radar for Pride 2022.

Juanita MORE! Pride

Sunday, June 26, 12-7pm
620 Jones, San Francisco, $60-$75

Juanita MORE! is San Francisco drag royalty. Not only has she performed in the city since the early ’90s, but she’s also a drag mother and grandmother who’s inducted numerous performers into the art form. She keeps up with a busy party schedule, puts out voter guides every election season and campaigns for issues and candidates that affect San Francisco’s LGBTQ+ community. (Most recently, she spoke out against progressive District Attorney Chesa Boudin’s recall.)

For her annual Pride party, MORE! combines her nightlife savvy and passionate advocacy. This year, her 18th throwing the event, she’s celebrating with a soiree at 620 Jones that benefits the Q Foundation. The Q Foundation offers rent assistance to LGBTQ+ people and those living with HIV, and advocates for housing subsidies on the local, state and federal levels. At Jones, MORE! has curated a stellar DJ lineup that includes Poundcake (Booty Call Wednesdays, Pillows), Brown Amy (Hard French, Chulita Vinyl Club), Black (Lift, Tight, Dream EZ and Hella Gay), Kim Anh (Berlin’s Berghain Kantine, Wilde Renata’s ELSE and London’s Horse Meat Disco), and Vicki Powell (Sunday Service and Deep South).

Drag queen on all fours with crowd surrounding
Nicki Jizz at Princess. (Rachel Ziegler)

Princess Pride: Pink Saturday & Pride Sunday

Saturday, June 25, 10pm and Sunday, June 26, 9pm
Oasis, San Francisco, $20

The glittering disco and drag party Princess takes over Oasis for the entirety of Pride weekend. The Pink Saturday edition features San Cha as the headliner. The Los Angeles-based singer came up in San Francisco’s drag scene, and her live shows mix the sweet sounds of her queer rancheras with wildly sex-positive performance art antics.

Joining San Cha is a lineup of San Francisco drag greats that includes Glamamore (a veteran performer who is also Juanita MORE!’s fashion designer), Per Sia, Oasis owner D’arcy Drollinger, 2022 Drag Queen of the Year pageant winner Militia Scunt, Reparations party founder Nicki Jizz, drag king Madd Dogg 20/20 and more. DJ Rubella Spreads will be behind the decks, with go-go dancers Mary Vice, Heaven On Earth and The.Little.King hyping the crowd all night.

The fun continues with another extravaganza on Pride Sunday, this time starring RuPaul’s Drag Race winner Raja and drag shows every half hour by Psueda, House of Cakes, Lisa Frankenstein, Kochina Rude, Vera!, Rubella and Cheetah Biscotti, and a DJ set by singer and fashion designer Kevin Aviance.

Soulovely: Black Liberation Nation

Sunday, Jun 26, 3:30–8:30pm
7th West, Oakland, $15-$30

Soulovely, a party by and centering queer women of color, is a welcome staple in Oakland each warm-weather season. Helmed by hip-hop artist Aima the Dreamer and DJs Lady Ryan and Emancipacion, Soulovely is celebrating its 10th anniversary this year. The event brings together an intergenerational crowd for a laidback dance party in the sunshine. Dancers might electric slide to an R&B classic like Luther Vandross’ “Never Too Much” one minute and drop it low to Megan Thee Stallion the next. Afrobeats, salsa, hyphy have been known to make their way into the mix—all the music is danceable and feel-good, but there are no rules. Soulovely celebrates Pride this month with the theme Black Liberation Nation and guest DJ Lexapeel.

DJ Black plays music from a bus during the People’s March and Rally on Polk Street heading toward City Hall in San Francisco on June 27, 2021. (Beth LaBerge/KQED)

DJ Black’s Official Pride Party: The Black Rainbow

Sunday, June 26, 8pm–4am
Brix and Oakland Secret, Oakland, $15-$30

Known as the “mother of all DJs” for her generosity and mentorship, Black was voted San Francisco Pride’s Community Grand Marshall this year. She prefers to call herself the Grand Marsha in homage to Marsha P. Johnson, the revolutionary trans activist who paved the way for the modern-day LGBTQ+ rights movement since the Stonewall uprising against police brutality in 1969.

Black has been active as a DJ since the early ’90s, and her A.B.L.U.N.T. and Herstory crews threw parties that centered queer women of color at a time when the queer party scene was notoriously not inclusive. To celebrate the community that got her to this SF Pride milestone, Black is hosting two simultaneous Pride parties next door to one another, at Brix and Oakland Secret. In addition to Black herself, DJs Guerrilla Pump, Fiera, Trilce, Archangel, Young Ella Baker, Honeybear, 3babyBlue, Kqeek Uneek, Blossom 007, DJ Romii and DJ Align will be in the mix.

Mighty Real Pride Weekender

June 25 and 26, 12pm-7pm
The Phoenix Hotel, San Francisco $20-$150

House music by the pool at a mid-century San Francisco hotel is an ideal vibe. The popular Mighty Real Pride returns to the Phoenix Hotel, this time as a weekend-long event with day parties Saturday and Sunday and an after party Sunday night. Saturday features headlining sets from David Morales and Derrick Johnson, both OG DJs who helped take house music from an underground, queer subculture to a global movement. The Bay Area’s own David Harness and Nina Sol join them on the bill; Harness helped popularize house in the Bay Area in the early ’90s as a DJ on KMEL’s Yo Momma’s House, and remains one of the most sought-after DJs in the scene. DJ Heather, hailed as one of the most important women in dance music history, headlines Sunday’s pool party, along with Tedd Patterson, Robin S., David Harness and a back-to-back set with Jeremy Rosebrook and Jimmy Depre.

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