Pilsen Pride runs from 9 to 13 September 2026 in Plzeň, and Saturday 12 September is the day of the march. People gather at 14:30 at the Mlýnská strouha, the walk through the city starts at 15:00, and the evening programme opens at 16:00 at the Buena Vista Club with voluntary admission. The dates and the place are on our Pilsen Pride event page.
Two things are new this year. The evening moves to Buena Vista Club, which the organisers announced in August as a new venue for the afterparty, and the edition carries the motto Spolu v jednom člunu, together in one boat, with an octopus and a trident on the poster. The accompanying events run from Wednesday 9 to Friday 11 September. In late August the organisers wrote on pilsenpride.eu that the week was still being confirmed and that details would go up as each event was fixed, so anyone planning around the Wednesday to Friday should read the site rather than assume a programme.
Why a Czech Pride in September
Plzeň holds its Pride at the very end of the summer, and the organisers explain the reason on their own site. Most of the organising team are students who are finishing exams, state examinations or the school leaving certificate in the weeks before the summer, and have no capacity to run a festival then. Summer itself is full of other festivals and holidays, with fewer people in the city. Early September is what is left, and it has been the slot since the festival started in 2017.
Who puts it on
Pilsen Pride is run by volunteers. The organisers state that no political party, movement or religious group stands behind it, that the aims are education, equal human rights and a safe space for LGBTQIA+ people and those around them, and they publish a transparent bank account for donations. They describe it as the only queer event in the Plzeň Region. Outside festival week the same group runs an evening called teplé večery every other Monday with Tábor 17, at Táborská 17, from 18:00 to 22:00, open to anyone and with voluntary admission.
The country around it
The Czech Republic scores 41.72 of 100 on ILGA-Europe's Rainbow Index. Since 1 January 2025 same sex couples can enter a partnership that carries what marriage carries apart from the name and joint adoption, with adoption of a partner's child allowed. The detail is on our Czech Republic country page. Plzeň sits about 90 km west of Prague, and this is a smaller thing than the Pride in the capital: past editions have drawn a few hundred people to one afternoon in the streets.
