Seven LGBTQ+ Events Worth Planning a West Coast Trip Around

The West Coast has a whole calendar of events, running from Puerto Vallarta up to the Cascade foothills, and these are the ones outside of the expected Pride celebrations.

We’ve included a range of events, from leather street fairs to a campground that has been going since 1975. One is a New Year’s Day block party that starts at four in the morning. Here are seven worth building a trip around, in calendar order, with what each one actually is and when it lands.

January 1: It’s A New Day and Breakfast of Champions, San Francisco

San Francisco’s longest-running New Year’s Day party, and the only thing on this list that expects you at 4am.

Breakfast of Champions began as a small after-party at Pier 23 under the tagline “6am til you cry, Uncle!” It has since grown into a full block party thrown by The Great Northern together with the Space Cowboys, and it passed its 25th anniversary in 2025. Recent editions have run more than 100 DJs across ten stages, with aerial performers, food trucks, and interactive installations filling the block on Utah Street.

The shape of it is unusual and worth understanding before you commit: the music starts at 4am and then the whole thing functions as an all-day event rather than a night out. People come straight from New Year’s Eve, people come freshly showered at 8am, and people come in the afternoon once they’ve woken up from the night before. There is no right way to do it.

While not strictly an LGBTQ+ event, in true San Francisco fashion it is extremely inclusive and the room feels very queer, so we felt it deserved a spot on our list. You’re going to see drag queens, boys in jocks and pup masks alongside ravers and burners of all ages (21+). Dress for a warehouse and an alley in January.

When: January 1, from 4am Where: San Francisco See it on Lavender Atlas and thegreatnorthernsf.com

Late January: BeefDip Bear Week, Puerto Vallarta

Every winter, BeefDip turns Puerto Vallarta into one of the world’s main bear destinations for a full eight days.

It is the original one. BeefDip was founded in 2002 and was the first organized gathering built specifically for the international bear and leather community in Vallarta. Everything since has followed it.

The week runs on a rhythm. Days belong to the pool and beach parties at open-air venues around the Zona Romántica, with a run of named events including the Splash opening, AquaBear midweek, Tidal Wave, Wet and Wild, and the Hydrate closer. Nights move indoors to the clubs for the themed balls: the Red Ball, the White Party, Super Heroes, the Black Ball, and SWEAT to finish. The bear boat trip has been a fixture for years and tends to sell out first.

Two practical notes. Vallarta in late January is dry-season perfect, which is also why the whole town is booked. And the Zona Romántica is walkable end to end, so you do not need a car.

When: January 24 to 31, 2027 Where: Puerto Vallarta, Mexico See it on Lavender Atlas and beefdip.com

June: Ostbahnhof, Los Angeles

The name is German for east train station and the branding nods to Weimar-era queer Berlin, but Ostbahnhof is thoroughly Los Angeles and has been since 2016.

The Party by Ostbahnhof is a queer underground dance series built on electronic music, performance art, and drag, with a crowd that treats the dance floor as the point rather than the backdrop. Regular parties land on various dates through the year at pop-up spaces rather than a fixed venue, which is part of the appeal and also why you have to follow them to catch one.

The one to plan around is Ostbahnhof XL, the annual festival edition on LA Pride weekend. It runs 13 hours across multiple stages in the Downtown Arts District, and it operates without corporate sponsorship, which is increasingly rare for a Pride-weekend event of that size.

When: XL lands on LA Pride weekend in June; regular parties run on various dates Where: Los Angeles See it on Lavender Atlas and @thepartybyostbahnhof

Mid-April to early October: Triangle Recreation Camp, Washington

This one is not an event. It is a place which hosts a series of LGBTQ+ events for a good portion of the year, and that is why it earns a spot here.

Triangle Recreation Camp is an 80-acre campground in the Cascade foothills, owned and operated by the LGBTQ+ community, and it has been running since 1975. That makes it older than almost every bar on this site. It sits about 21 miles east of Granite Falls along the Mountain Loop Highway, roughly two hours from Seattle once you account for the last stretch of road.

What you get is tent and RV sites, a private stretch of the Stillaguamish River, and a season of themed weekends with DJs and dance nights rather than one headline date. It is adults only, 21 and over, and runs on a membership model with guest access, so it is not a campground you can simply book on a whim. Read the site and sort your access before you drive out.

The season runs roughly mid-April to early October. Go in high summer for the river.

When: Season runs mid-April to early October Where: Granite Falls, Washington See it on Lavender Atlas and camptrc.org

Last Sunday of July: Dore Alley, San Francisco

Dore is the leather, kink and BDSM street fair that takes over a block of South of Market every July. It started in 1985 on Ringold Street and moved to its current Folsom-and-Dore footprint in 1987, born at the height of the AIDS epidemic as a way of proving the SoMa leather community was still here, organized, and going nowhere.

It is smaller, grittier and more local than its famous September sibling, the Folsom Street Fair, and for regulars that is the whole point. Folsom pulls hundreds of thousands, many of them tourists. Dore pulls a fraction of that, skews LGBTQ+ and local, and reads more like a neighborhood homecoming than a spectacle. It is also the better first leather street fair for most people.

The surrounding weekend fills with club events, so the fair itself is only part of the plan. Adults only, kink-positive, free to enter with a suggested donation at the gates. We have a full guide to Dore Alley if you want the detail.

When: The last Sunday of July Where: San Francisco See it on Lavender Atlas and folsomstreet.org

Late July into August: Lazy Bear Week, Guerneville

Lazy Bear started in the mid-1990s as a poolside gathering among friends on the Russian River. It is now one of the largest bear events in the world, and 2026 marked its 30th year.

Guerneville is a small redwood town about two hours north of San Francisco, and during Lazy Bear it is effectively taken over. The R3 Hotel and its pool run as the daytime hub, Rainbow Cattle Company handles the nights, and the river handles the recovery. Expect pool parties, campfires under the redwoods, DJs, and a lot of people who have been coming for a decade.

The part that gets undersold: it is a fundraiser, and a serious one. The event expanded from a weekend to a full week in 2017, is run by volunteers, and the Lazy Bear Fund has raised more than $2.5 million for causes including clinics, food banks, HIV services, and addiction support.

Book accommodation absurdly early. The town is tiny and it sells out months ahead.

When: July 26 to August 2, 2027 Where: Guerneville, California See it on Lavender Atlas and lazybearfund.org

All year: Electroluxx, San Francisco and Seattle

The only entry here you can catch on an ordinary weekend. The Electroluxx team throws events year round.

Electroluxx is a queer, art-focused dance party series started by SF muralist Elliott C. Nathan and Brett Mendenhall, who began by shoving tables against a wall and building a makeshift DJ booth in front of their own paintings. It passed ten years in 2024 and now fills rooms like The Midway and, on occasion, the Palace of Fine Arts, with Seattle editions at venues including Monkey Loft.

It leans creative rather than purely circuit. A given night might carry multiple stages of DJs, drag and dance performances, a silent disco on the mezzanine, black-light zones, live muralists working through the night, art cars, a foam pit, face painting, and a cuddle-puddle lounge for when you need to sit down. The stated aim is a room where everyone feels able to turn up as themselves, and the programming follows from that.

Because it runs in two cities across the year, it is usually the easiest thing on this list to actually get to.

When: Various dates through the year Where: San Francisco and Seattle See it on Lavender Atlas and electroluxx.co

Planning around them

Four of these are fixed points you can build a year around: New Year’s Day in San Francisco, late January in Puerto Vallarta, the last Sunday of July for Dore, and the Lazy Bear week that follows it. Triangle runs a whole season, Ostbahnhof moves, and Electroluxx turns up often enough that you can fold it into a trip you were taking anyway.

Two of them run back to back. Dore Alley lands on the Sunday and Lazy Bear opens the very next morning, two hours up the road, so one trip covers both if you have the stamina.

Dates shift, so check the official links before booking. Everything above is on Lavender Atlas with its current details, and you can save any of it to a list and map it as you plan.

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