an organizer with Visuality.\u00a0<\/a><\/p>\nCahill said the move puts the festival in the center of the city’s entertainment district. Safety is a priority for this year’s event.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“We have barricades at every street entrance. There will be police cars parked there, so no cars will be able to drive in. We will have a buffer zone behind all of those in case something does happen,” Cahill said.<\/p>\n
The City of Fort Myers says it will close down parts of Lee and First streets from 8 a.m. to 11:30 p.m. Saturday.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The Fort Myers Police Department tells WINK News there will be an increased police presence during the event.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Hopefully everyone just wants to come and have a good time and doesn’t want to come and create chaos,” said Taylor Gorry, who lives in downtown Fort Myers.\u00a0<\/p>\n
While some people who didn’t want to go on camera said they don’t support the festival, others welcomed the move to downtown.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Bruce Parker, who lives in Fort Myers part-time, said the location offers convenience and accessibility. “It’s a very convenient location. It’s easy to get around, plenty of shops and stores, and it offers a lot of welcoming activities,” Parker said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Gorry said the downtown location makes sense for the festival. “They have the art and the music walk, so why not bring Pride down here?” Gorry said.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Cahill said organizers are excited to celebrate with a new look as they prepare performances and decorations.\u00a0<\/p>\n
“Just come down, it’s going to be a great celebration of love and joy and just acceptance,” Cahill said.<\/p>\n
For more information on the event, click here.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"FORT MYERS, Fla. (WINK)\u2014The Southwest Florida Pride Festival returns with a new location after being canceled in 2025.\u00a0…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":305613,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210,3837,325,115],"class_list":["post-305612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news","tag-collaborator_gen_stories","tag-lee","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=305612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/305612\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/305613"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=305612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=305612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=305612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}