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While Pride Month has come and gone for much of the country, in Charlotte, festivities are still to come. Charlotte Pride 2025 will take place on Aug. 16-17 in a new location as it celebrates its 25th year. The parade will still run down Tryon Street but the festival will take place mainly around First Ward Park, allowing for more space for what’s expected to be the festival’s biggest year yet as it reaches a quarter-century.

While funding this year has been a bit of a struggle thanks to President Donald Trump’s tactics targeting all things LGBTQ and DEI and the ripple effects that those policies have had on corporate spending, the team at Charlotte Pride is still planning to put on a party worth remembering.

Below, we list some of the performers to check for, including three headliners and a slew of local acts. Make sure to also check out the Pride-related events while you wait for these folks to hit the stage.

Learn more including parking details, a parade map, hotel partners and how to find merch at the Charlotte Pride website.

HEADLINERS

Adore Delano
Adore Delano is the first artist we know of who made the jump from American Idol to Rupaul’s Drag Race, which just goes to show her range. She was runner-up in Rupaul’s Drag Race Season 6 before returning for Season 2 of All-Stars. In 2019, Adore was included as one of New York Magazine’s top 10 most powerful drag queens in America. With more than 2 million Instagram followers and 716,000 on TikTok, she is also one of the top 5 most followed RPDR contestants across social platforms.

Where Adore really shines is on the mic, however. As a musician, she has released three studio albums and the 2021 EP Dirty Laundry. With several songs and videos reaching tens of millions of streams across all platforms, Adore has solidified herself as a titan of drag music and pop/rock. Her music has also appeared on several television programs including Pretty Little Liars. Her most recent tour, Party Your World, spanned 50 cities, including many sold-out dates across three continents.

In a recent interview with the online magazine Them, Adore said her recent music has drawn inspiration from her (also trans) partner Sasha Allen, a former contestant on The Voice, as Adore tries to provide hope in the gloomy climate of the second Trump administration.

“He writes his own music and I love hearing his input,” she said. “I’m pulling from my perspective on what’s going on in the world, but also kind of giving people hope at the same time. No matter what position you are in life, you can find love within yourself and with other people.”

Snow Wife
With a stage name that puts a domestic spin on the OG fairy tale princess, Snow Wife (Emily Snow) embraced songwriting by accident. Trained in her hometown of Houston for a career as a dancer, Snow moved to Los Angeles where she discovered her voice and love of songwriting. Drawing on influences ranging from the eclectic dance pop of Lady Gaga and the sexually explicit rap of Doja Cat, Snow introduced audiences to her husky, raspy vocals and uncompromising lyrics with her moody debut single “7FIGURESUPERMODEL.”

The pop provocateur’s follow-up single, the sensual and cinematic “American Horror Story,” quickly became a viral sensation. The song appears on Snow’s 2023 debut EP Queen Degenerate. With raunchy lyricism and infectious dance rhythms on tunes like “I Love Drugs” and “Fuck,” the EP drew praise for its originality, energy and unabashed celebration of queer sensibilities.

Subsequent releases display Snow’s increasing range, with music embracing hyper pop and hip hop, and words exploring the emotional bonds forged between women. With swooning melodicism and a pulsing beat, 2025 single “Sweat” emphasizes desire, with a romantic embrace of life, dance, partying and relationships. Released in June, the glossy, gritty and glitter Bodyology EP, blends catchy nostalgic 2000s-style pop with a modern, experimental sound.

In her music videos, Snow’s fluid dance moves complement the elastic textures of her tunes. As a queer woman and advocate for the LGBTQ+ community, she champions representation. The videos also depict gender fluid dancers and love interests, and Snow often wears clothing from queer-owned brands.

Shaun Ross
Shaun Ross made his mark on the modeling world as the first professional male model with albinism, working with a number of fashion designers, magazines and campaigns including Givenchy, Alexander McQueen, Vogue, GQ, and Nylon. You may recognize him from his appearances in high-profile music videos like Beyonce’s “Pretty Hurts,” Katy Perry’s “E.T.” or Lana Del Ray’s short film Tropico.

He began making music in 2017, releasing debut single “Symmetry” in November of that year. His first full-length LP, SHIFT, would follow in 2021. He’s well-known in the underground ballroom scenes of New York and Los Angeles, voguing as the wester coaster father of the famed House of Ninja.

The 33-year-old went viral on Threads in January when he recollected the story of how he came out to his grandfather — and his grandpa’s hilarious response, which leaned old-school but remained accepting.
“I remember coming out to my grandpa a year before he passed,” Ross wrote. “I was shocked by how he embraced me. I said, ‘Grandad, I’m gay,’ and he replied, ‘Well, can you cook?’ I said, ‘Not really.’ He laughed, ‘How do you expect to keep a man?’”

More recently, Ross has built his name as a DJ and at Charlotte Pride will close out the night with the renowned Stardust Vogue Ball, a set that’s all about radical self-expression, beauty and ballroom energy.

LOCAL PERFORMERS

Janelle Sy’mone
Voted Best Female R&B artist at the 2019 Carolina Music Awards, Janelle Sy’mone crafts tunes that take listeners on an emotional journey. An electrifying energy threads through Sy’mone’s stage performances and songs like the blues-based “Prove It 2 Me,” the punchy Gospel-infused “Got You,” and the ebullient electro-funk dance-pop banger “All Night.” “Good Girl,” the title track of Sy’mone’s debut album, is a tribute to her beloved sister, a Black trans woman named Diamond Z. Starr-Reynolds.

Currently based in Atlanta, Charlotte Pride carries a deep personal resonance for Sy’mone because her sister Starr-Reynolds was murdered by her romantic partner. Each song on Sy’mone’s album is interspersed with brief audio interludes, which mix dialog with evocative background music. The dialog on the interlude “Diamond’s Wisdom,” which “Good Girl” on the album, is taken from a recording made by Starr-Reynolds. Sy’mone, who performed on the Charlotte Pride Main Stage in 2023, returns to the Main Stage this year.

Maggie Lowe
Maggie Lowe is a local musician who’s been described as a soulful musical storyteller, pairing irreverent wit with sides of spicy sass. Their songs are sincere and raw with a flare of humor while telling the tales of love and identity. Lowe writes lyrics that appreciate the human experience with something everyone can relate to, with inspirations that include Tracy Chapman, Bradi Carlile and Alabama Shakes.

Lowe’s debut album, Tunes for Terrible Times, dropped last August and features Southern charm at its best, with roots in folk and, well, roots music, with two back-to-back follow-ups in 2025 with May’s Coming In Hott and June’s Like Love. Lowe won a spot on the Main Stage during Charlotte Pride’s community auditions last year and returns for 2025 with three Pride-related performances: one on the Main Stage, one on the Flourish stage and another at LOLGBTQ+ on Aug. 15.

Carolina Down Boys
Carolina Down Boys is a queer-based Americana/dark-folk group from Charlotte that challenges social norms through community-minded lyrics, aiming to rouse the crowd into a state of love and unity. Their live performances are intimate, compelling and tenacious. Instrumentation from cello, violin and banjo provide the perfect backdrop to lead singer Heather Himes’ rich vocal harmonies, taking listeners on a journey of resilience.

“We write songs that bring us hope and it’s amazing when they do the same for others,” said lead singer Heather Himes. “Especially those who struggle with being in their own skin or wounds from religious trauma.”

COMMUNITY AUDITION WINNERS

GEREM3
A self-described “Storyteller. Rain dancer. Dreamcatcher. Air bender,” Charlotte’s own Gerem3 got his start as a dancer, one-third of the local troupe Basic Instinct. In our 2019 profile of the group, Gerem3 told us he was inspired to move by watching videos of Michael and Janet Jackson as a kid. By that point, the trio had already performed at five Charlotte Pride events.

Since then Gerem3 has been making waves as a solo musician, an art he’s long been talented in but avoided out of insecurity in the past.

“Being an artist was the only thing that really made sense,” Gerem3 told SHOUTOUT HTX in 2024. “I can’t but truly be myself COMPLETELY when I’m writing or performing. Music just cuts me wide open. I can’t hide, I can’t pretend. I’m my strongest and most vulnerable and have the most fun doing what I do!”

Angel Blacc
With “big mood, bold style and queer anthems,” local rapper Angel Blacc dropped both volumes of their prettylittlethug EP this summer, providing a hot lead-up to this year’s Pride performance featuring old-school, sample-heavy Southern beats reminiscent of 36 Mafia in their prime and a merciless flow that Meg Thee Stallion fans would appreciate.

The fact that Angel Blacc was a featured artist at Charlotte Black Pride as “The People’s Choice” just last month only to turn around and earn their way onto the main Charlotte Pride stage goes to show that their fearless style is ready for a larger fanbase, and we see that happening in the very near future.

John Maddrey
Self-proclaimed “singer/songwriter/sadboi” John Maddrey is bringing his style of alt-folk from the bedroom, where he got his start recording much of his earlier music, to the Charlotte Pride stage.

While interning at Jason Jet’s Grindhaus Studios at age 18, Maddrey sharpened his skills in engineering and production, adding a crispness to his music on recent projects such as Issues, the five-track EP he dropped on New Year’s Day of this year. The project displays Maddrey’s range from the electronic video-game(ish) production on “Hard to Find” to the more traditional, stripped-down acoustics of “If I Drown.”

More 2025 Pride Guide content: Anti-DEI Push Leads to Shortfall in Corporate Funding at Charlotte Pride; Black as the Cosmos Explores Culture Through Crystal Art, Music, Sex and Magic; Pride Guide 2025: How To Find All the Fun That’s Going on for Pride Week