Vancouver’s lesbian and gay community lost something when its only gay bar, Northbank, closed. But it gained ground when The Advocate, a national gay-interest magazine, ranked the city the sixth-gayest in America.
Ambivalent about what that meant for the 17th annual Saturday in the Park, Corey Eubanks, a planning committee member for the event, said he was ecstatic with the turnout.
“There’s more people here than last year,” Eubanks said mid-afternoon Saturday at Esther Short Park in downtown Vancouver. “I think next year will be even bigger.”
The event, put on by Saturday in the Park Pride, a group registered as a nonprofit, aimed to celebrate the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people of Clark County. It featured entertainment by a number of performers throughout the day, including Lipz Cabaret, which was The Northbank’s drag revue, and the band There She Goes, fronted by Vancouver’s Christi Mangner.