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Hamptons Pride Parade Returns to East Hampton for 5th Annual Celebration June 6
The Hamptons Pride Parade returns June 6 for its fifth year in East Hampton, marking a milestone celebration alongside momentum for a Wainscott Green LGBTQ+ memorial and gathering space.
Tom House can’t help but check the weather forecast this year. As president and founder of Hamptons Pride, he has a big parade ahead — and memories of last year’s torrential rain still linger. Not that it stopped the celebration or dampened enthusiasm.
The Hamptons Pride Parade, now in its fifth year, will take place June 6 “rain or shine.” This year’s forecast looks promising. Those who attended last year in East Hampton remember the downpour — a rain so heavy and constant it made this year’s Memorial Day washout seem like amateur hour.
A Parade That Went On — Downpour and All
Still, the show went on.
As the skies opened and rainbow umbrellas popped up, the parade of cars, decorated banners, and community groups in festive outfits continued undeterred down Main Street and Newtown Lane.
The rain never let up, but neither did the energy. The mood — sunny and exuberant — as if Barbra Streisand herself had whispered a reminder to the participants: “Nobody, no nobody, is gonna rain on my parade.”
Onlookers did not arrive in the same numbers as previous years, but they showed up nonetheless — gay, straight, LGBTQ+ residents, allies, and families — an enthusiastic, if very wet, cheering section.
It wasn’t the easiest day to navigate. But there was House, zipping around on an electric scooter, checking in on hundreds of participants as they made their way through town toward Herrick Park, where John Cameron Mitchell of Hedwig and the Angry Inch headlined post-parade festivities.
Five Years of Pride in the Hamptons
House is understandably excited about this year’s event — not only because the forecast calls for partly sunny skies. Five years marks a milestone, and the parade will feature performances by beloved East End singer-songwriter Inda Eaton, Jeff Marshall, and Mila Tina, with DJ Watts providing dance grooves.
“The Bridgehampton School Marimba Band will also greet people as they enter from the Lumber parking lot into Herrick Park,” House said. “We’ve got really good food trucks this year — people love it.”
The Pride Parade has become a highly anticipated annual event, a feel-good display of community that unites the town and village in a moment of support and celebration.
A Free Community Event, Powered by Donations
“The parade has grown steadily,” House said, acknowledging that last year’s torrential rain slightly dampened its “exponential growth.” With 60 to 80 groups participating and hundreds of people in the parade, coordination is no small task.
“We’re the next biggest parade — after the Centennial parade — in the history of East Hampton,” he said, with clear pride.
Held the first Saturday in June, Pride Month, the parade is one of several events organized by Hamptons Pride. Since its founding in 2019 and official launch in 2021, the organization has expanded its programming to include an LGBTQ+ film series at Bay Street Theater, an AIDS quilt display at LTV for World AIDS Day, and a major fundraising gala at LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton, scheduled for June 20.
Last week, The HUB in Bridgehampton hosted a Hamptons Pride art auction preview party featuring the artist-painted “Served with Pride” trays that supporters will bid on to help raise funds at the gala. Ross Bleckner, Paton Miller and many other noted artists in the community contributed their talent for the cause.
“We are all volunteer run, none of us make salaries,” House said. When House says “it takes a lot of energy” he isn’t kidding.
“I have to stress, the parade is all free — we do it all with donated money,” House said. “I don’t know how much longer we can keep it free without a big sponsor. Costs keep going up — music, production, mobile ads, website design. We’re well into five figures, not including security, which has been provided at no cost for the past five years, which is a meaningful. donation.”
House said he hopes to keep the parade free for participants, but added that if funding does not increase, registration fees may become necessary. “We like that there are no barriers to participation — you just register to join the parade. Registration ends June 4.”
From The Swamp to Wainscott Green
House has long been active in LGBTQ+ community spaces — or, as what was once more simply called “the gay community” before the acronym added several letters.
He remembers the Hamptons when a different kind of procession — a line of cars in Wainscott — would slow traffic along Route 27 near The Swamp, the legendary bar, restaurant, and nightclub that catered to LGBTQ+ patrons and allies.
The Swamp, which operated for more than 25 years and was the longest-running gay club in the Hamptons, served as a “safe space” for gathering, socializing, and yes, dancing to artists like Sylvester and Donna Summer.
House, now a schoolteacher in the Hamptons, bartended there for more than 20 years. When The Swamp and its adjoining space, The Annex, closed, he said, a chapter in local LGBTQ+ life came to an end.
Preserving a Site of Local LGBTQ+ History
“My personal history was so tethered to that spot that it became my mission, once the land became a town park, to get something built there,” House said. House wrote about it in The East Hampton Star and later incorporated Hamptons Pride in 2021 as a nonprofit to help fund a planned installation at Wainscott Green.
Today, the site is known as Wainscott Green / Rick Del Mastro Memorial Park, developed through collaboration between Hamptons Pride, the East Hampton Town Board, the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee, and the Georgica Pond Foundation.
Rick Del Mastro, who died in 2020 of complications caused by the coronavirus, was a longtime Wainscott civic leader and former chairman of the advisory committee. He helped lead efforts to preserve the former Swamp property as public parkland and opposed a proposed car wash there, advocating instead for town acquisition and open-space preservation.
Plans Move Forward for Wainscott Green Project
Plans for a new Hamptons Pride memorial and community gathering space at Wainscott Green continue to move forward after receiving support this spring from the East Hampton Town Planning Board, Town Board, Architectural Review Board, and the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee.
The project includes a memorial garden honoring East End residents lost to the AIDS epidemic and a sculpture designed by Gustavo Bonevardi. House said it is intended to be more than a tribute to the former nightclub.
“I see it as a year-round gathering place for the East End LGBTQ+ community and its allies,” he said.
A centerpiece of the design is a dance-floor sculpture marking the exact location where The Swamp’s dance floor once stood. The project is planned to be funded entirely through private donations and grants, at no cost to the town.
What would it take to actualize the project? “A lot,” House says. “Probably close to a million, to do it right.” Certainly more than what it takes to pull off a parade or book a movie series that charges $10.
“Hamptons Pride has already secured and allocated $150,000 through early fundraising efforts,” House said. “We plan to work with local contractors, generating economic benefits while drawing support from businesses that have already expressed interest.”
Clarifying the Vision Behind the Project
House also addressed what he called misconceptions about the project.
“Many people have been calling the installation the ‘Swamp Memorial,’ but that’s not exactly what it is — or only part of what it is,” he said. “It’s primarily an outdoor social area that incorporates a historical marker and a memorial garden — three strands woven together by Bonevardi. To call it the Swamp Memorial is reductive,” House added.
He said the final installation will be “a gorgeous Hamptons focal point built in honor of the East End’s LGBTQIA+ people and their allies,” and a living repository of local LGBTQ+ history along what was once known as “The Miracle Mile.”
A formal name for the site is still in development.
House said another misconception involves renderings of pastel figures included in early presentations. “They were for scale only,” he said. “They are not ‘a thing.’”
A Growing Parade, and a Larger Mission
What is very much a thing is the fifth annual Hamptons Pride Parade.
“Just as the Town of East Hampton was the first on the East End to close its main streets for a Pride Parade,” says House, “it again positions itself at the forefront of national efforts to acknowledge the underrepresented history of its LGBTQIA+ people — making an invisible history visible on the authentic site where it took place.”
And with that, House zipped off. After all, he’s got a big parade to pull off.
The Fifth Annual Parade Takes Center Stage
The 5th Annual Hamptons Pride Parade takes place on Saturday, June 6, 2026 in East Hampton at 12 noon followed by a celebration in Herrick Park from 1 – 3 p.m.
Registration to march in the parade ends June 4.
For more information, visit: Hamptonspride.org
