The third Leuven Pride walks on Saturday 26 September 2026. The city has had a Pride only since 2024, and the organisers say around 2,000 people joined last year's walk. This edition has a subject rather than a slogan, and that subject is safety.
It runs through everything they have organised. Over the year the organisers have been collecting accounts of verbal abuse, exclusion and violence on a site of their own, and the run-up to the weekend is a series of public sessions they call Pride Hubs. On Friday 25 September the community sits down with the police, the city, schools and the hospitality trade at the UniQue rainbow house in Kessel-Lo, from 20:00, with soup and bread from 19:00. Entry is free, registration is required, and the evening is held in Dutch. The Hub page also lists a cookout on Saturday 19 September at the MijnLeuven Villa, in English, open to people of colour only.
Saturday itself is set out on the organisers' programme page. Gathering on the Ladeuzeplein from 15:00, the walk at 16:00, back on the square around 17:30 for a show with music, dance, drag and speakers, then music until 21:00. The closing party at Het Depot opens at the same hour and is the only ticketed part of the weekend, at 15 euro in advance and 18 at the door. On Sunday 27 September the rainbow house serves coffee and cake from 14:00 and that is the end of it.
Two things to know before you go
The route is not published in advance. The organisers say they release it only a few days beforehand because of the threat of counter-protests, so watch their channels in the final week rather than picking a corner to stand on. And the walk carries rules that apply to everyone in it. Consent is required before photographing or filming anybody, and political parties and their affiliates may not march under their own colours. The safer space policy sets both out, along with a care team in marked vests and a quiet space for anyone who needs to step out.
Access is described in more detail than most Prides manage. Leuven's cobbles are hard going on wheels, so there is a pickup point halfway along where you can join for a shorter stretch. There are accessible toilets on the square and at that point, a reserved area in front of the stage for people in wheelchairs and for anyone who needs to see the interpreter, and the show is interpreted into Flemish Sign Language and presented in Dutch and English. The accessibility page carries the detail, and the organisers ask anyone who needs help along the way to write to them beforehand.
The city, and the country
We list one venue in Leuven, and it is the house the weekend opens and closes in. UniQue is the rainbow house for Flemish Brabant, a volunteer-run centre with a bar on Leuvensestraat in Kessel-Lo, a few minutes' walk behind the station, and several of the local LGBTQI+ groups hold their own café evenings there. For a wider choice of bars and saunas, Brussels is twenty five kilometres west, among them Chez Maman, La Réserve and Macho Sauna. Belgium scores 85.31 out of 100 on ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index, the fourth-highest of the 49 countries it rates.
