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SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE
A volunteer recruitment night was held Tuesday for the city's first Pride festival, scheduled for the September long weekend.

Amid the mingling and volunteer sign ups, organizers made a number of exciting announcements.

Headlining the festival with the closing performance on Sunday, Sept. 2 in the Folk on the Rocks beer garden site will be Brooklyn-based alternative rock band Hunter Valentine.

"They are huge in the LGBTQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and queer) community," said festival director Iman Kassam. "They are really, really awesome and we could not be more excited."

Hunter Valentine, originally from Toronto, is an all girls four-member band which scheduled to release a third studio album, Collide and Conquer, next month.

The band's stop in Yellowknife will be almost a month to the day prior to the official tour for the new album, so only the first two studio albums, The Impatient Romantic and Lessons from the Late Night, will be available at Pride.

Hunter Valentine is also scheduled to have a guest appearance on the Showtime TV network's The Real L Word, which is currently in its third season.

Kassam said on Tuesday that the festival is still looking for a local band to headline the Saturday evening portion of the festival.

Dustin Philippon, a.k.a. Pronoia, and a team of DJs will be performing during the day on Sept. 1 and 2 into the early evening.

NWT Pride also had a few major sponsors to announce for the festival, the title sponsor, Toronto Dominion Bank. MacNeill said that this will be the 14th different Pride festival in the country that TD will sponsor.

Another exciting sponsor announcement was that Skittles, via Wrigley Canada, has signed on for the festival, although MacNeill and Kassam would not say how Skittles plans on showing its support yet.

"Taste the rainbow, hello!" said Kassam. "A little cheeky, but c'mon it is kind of gay."

The Public Service Alliance of Canada has thrown its support behind the festival, as well. Regional executive vice-president Julie Docherty was present on Tuesday night.

"We hope this is the start of many more to follow," Docherty said at the event.

NWT Pride is planned to kick start during the day on Aug. 31 with rainbow cake outside the main post office, in keeping with the Pride tradition the city has had in past years.

Starting around 5 p.m., Aug. 31, will be a kickoff family barbecue and speeches outside city hall. A Friday night concert is scheduled for the Top Knight Pub on Aug. 31, with Yellowknife songwriter Grey Gritt set to open for Toronto band Random Order.

"Random Order is like a ska reggae band. They have been here a few times before and have a strong following in Yellowknife," said Kassam.

The rest of the festival will take place at the Folk on the Rocks beer garden site.

Volunteer co-ordinator Peyton Straker said they had quite a few people come and sign up, although there are still spots to fill.

"The biggest is security, Pride is all taking place in the beer garden area of the Folk site, so there will be a beer garden within that," Straker said. "It will be a bit tricky which is why we need so much security."

Straker said another big spot to fill is a stage manager for the Sunday.

"It will be an all day shift, but we really need someone for that," she said.

A Facebook page has been established for volunteers to sign up and communicate.

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