Regina’s annual Queen City Pride festival kicks off Friday.

The festival will be a “hybrid” event with both virtual and in-person events for the next nine days.

Co-chair of Queen City Pride Dan Shier says it’s important to celebrate pride month during the pandemic.

“Pride is kind of about our community coming together,” Shier said. “It’s an opportunity for us to connect with each other, at at time when we are so spread apart, that is just that much more important.”

Shier says in-person and virtual events will be held.

“We want to ensure that anything that we do in-person follows SHA guidelines, and (we are) encouraging our community to plan for events that are virtual,” Shier said. “We want to try and also do something in between so that not everything is a Zoom party and keeping people at home in front of their computers.”

Some of the virtual events include an audio tour of downtown and a photo scavenger hunt across the city.

Shier says while the movement has made great strides in recent years, there’s still much more to do.

“There’s many parts of our community that are still facing injustices, the general struggle for human rights still is very important, and if you look abroad as well, there’s still so much more to do.”

A complete list of events is available on the Queen City Pride website.