RIOT! The Capital Pride Official Opening Party

The Official Opening Dance Party of Capital Pride 2024 is returning with a star-studded drag performance featuring headliner Sapphira Cristál of Rupaul’s Drag Race and an insane line up of the region’s most amazing performers and DJs…and will be held at EchoStage! This is primed to be a completely remarkable experience to start off Capital Pride weekend in DC!

RIOT! is a party named in homage to the awe-inspiring efforts of our ancestors. On June 28, 1969, following a police raid on the Stonewall Inn, a RIOT broke out, lasting for several days. A united queer community diverse in gender identities and race, including Marsha P. Johnson and Sylvia Rivera, unknowingly sparked a revolution of activism that would lead to the rights we have today. Now, 55 years after the RIOT that started it all, we can celebrate and dance and prance and strut, slay, death-drop, twerk, and werq, and generally be our own true selves because of the heroes who came before us. And now, faced with new efforts to criminalize our very existence, we need to rise up together again and declare “DRAG IS NOT A CRIME!” What better way to make that statement than to celebrate drag in all its forms with a performance night of epic proportions. Come join the insanity and dance the night away with thousands of your friends and chosen family!