Boston’s Queer Fest Takeover Is the Feel-Good Story 2025 Needs

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A 2024 Big Queer Food Fest event at Boston’s High Street Place, a precursor to the full multi-day festival in April-May 2025. / Courtesy of Big Queer Food Fest

During a busy rush on Marathon Monday, a man entered Sweet Cheeks Q on Boylston Street in Fenway—and ripped down its Pride flag before leaving. The intolerant act was a first for restaurateur Tiffani Faison, who shared the story with her 94k Instagram followers, along with a promise: “We’re not less queer, not less proud and not going to cower.”

A week later, on April 28, Sweet Cheeks doubled down on its status as a safe space by hosting the opening event of the Big Queer Food Fest. Now underway, the weeklong series celebrates the LGBTQIA+ culinary community and promotes inclusivity and representation by bringing to Boston a veritable who’s-who of queer culinary talent (and drag performers, too). Throughout the week, there are various ticketed and free opportunities to see the likes of Top Chef: All-Stars winner Melissa King, cookbook author Rick Martinez, and Lowell’s own RuPaul’s Drag Race icon Jujubee.

In June, Boston will also host the first East Coast edition of the Outloud Music Festival, a Los Angeles-based enterprise which amplifies LGBTQIA+ artists, headlined by Kim Petras, Trixie Mattel, and Rebecca Black.

The fact that both national festivals chose Boston for breakout events is meaningful to city advocates.

“The expectation is [that] LA and New York” are epicenters of queer community, says the Boston-based Faison, who is also a Food Network star with a national profile. “There’s something really special about a city of our size being thought of first.”

The Big Queer Food Fest began in 2023 with one-off events in cities across the U.S. Because of Boston’s support, organizers chose it for the debut of the festival’s ultimate form—multiple days of panel discussions, cocktail parties, and a chef’s dinner all leading up to Grand Tasting events on May 3 and 4 at High Street Place. Throughout the week, pop-up social hours are raising funds for BAGLY and Community Servings, two nonprofits dedicated to the LGBTQIA+ community.

Last year’s BQFF Boston party sold out in two weeks, notes co-founder Chad Hahne, which indicated to the team that “Bostonians have great taste,” he says. Getting Meet Boston, the city’s official tourism board, as the main sponsor “is really instrumental in lifting this inaugural week-long festival,” Hahne adds. “Their entire industry is about bringing people to Boston and showing what Boston is about.”

One way that Meet Boston positions the city is as “a foodie city that is also very welcoming,” says Martha J. Sheridan, president and CEO of Meet Boston (and No. 31 Most Influential Bostonian of 2025). “BQFF resonated with us for many reasons, particularly because it is a culinary event that is fundamentally inclusive.”

The City of Boston has shown itself a leader in acceptance, says Outloud executive producer Jeff Consoletti. A Massachusetts native and founder of JJ LA, an event production company in Los Angeles, Consoletti took note when the Boston City Council passed a resolution earlier this year declaring specific protections for transgender and gender non-confirming individuals. “Boston is already taking steps in the right direction to be inclusive across all communities, and that’s a standard that Outloud wants to uphold,” he says.

To produce Outloud Boston, JJ LA is working with Bowery Presents, the concert promotion company with venues dotting the East Coast from New York to Virginia, including the Sinclair and Roadrunner locally. Bowery’s track record of diverse programming “embraces different fans across all kinds of demographics,” Consoletti says.

So, in case you’re wondering: No, you don’t have to identify as LGBTQIA+ to participate in Boston’s high-profile queer events this spring. “It’s about a platform to show support and create safe spaces,” Consoletti says.

For Faison, Boston’s spring of queer events is “every pun intended, a moment for us to further plant our flag in the ground and remind ourselves why celebrating who we are as a community is important.”

Trixie Mattel at a previous Outloud Music Festival in West Hollywood, California. / Photo by Nazrin Massaro

Big Queer Food Fest, April 28-May 4, multiple locations, bigqueerfoodfest.com; Outloud Musical Festival, June 21, the Stage at Suffolk Downs, outloudmusicfestival.com/boston. For more things to do around Boston, check out our weekly events guide.