Event is first Intersect after death of founder Mickey Harmon

By Patrick Sawers

An ocean of local talent and pride will take over the east end of Allen Street this weekend, as Intersect: A Pride Arts Festival celebrates the creative and artistic contributions of Buffalo’s culturally diverse LGBTQIA+ community.

This year’s event – happening Saturday, May 31 from noon until 10 p.m. – will be the first event since the festival’s founder, Mickey Harmon, was killed alongside his partner, Jordan Celotto, at their Allentown home in March. As such, the festival this year will stand as a loving tribute to the pair, but it will also see its boundaries extended in both size and duration.

“This will be an alternative pride festival for the queer community to celebrate all aspects of pride,” said Sara Ali, one of the event’s organizers (and also a member of The Buffalo Hive’s Board of Directors), “and it’s to honor our burlesque, drag and all the performers and all the people we have making Buffalo such a rich city.”

The festival this year will span Allen Street from Main Street to Virginia Place, a one-block extension from last year’s terminus at Franklin, and there will be two additional hours of live performance.

Beyond that, however, organizers set out to remain largely true to its founder’s original vision.

“I think a lot of this comes from Mickey,” Ali said, “because this was his baby and this was his legacy, this was his passion project that we’re just continuing. And our goal is to keep it within his vision and not stray from what he wanted it to be originally.”

Much of Intersect will be centered around the 26 Allen, where an outdoor stage will be set up outside the bar featuring live performances and entertainment throughout all 10 hours of the festival.

“There will be poetry, music, DJs, drag, burlesque and all sorts of musical performances,” Ali noted. “We have somebody bringing their ukelele, there’ll be the Buffalo Gay Men’s Chorus, we have some speakers from Evergreen (Health), we have Mitch (Nowakowski, Buffalo City Council member representing the Fillmore District), he will be speaking. And I know some of the performers are doing tributes to Mickey.”

Beyond that, she said, a vendor market will span the closed-off portion of Allen Street, with over 50 vendors participating and displaying all manner of artistic creations.

“We have different folks selling all different things,” Ali said. “Resin jewelry, crochet items, knick-knacks, frozen desert on a stick, teas, clothing, vintage clothing. So the vendors will be tabling and selling their products to people at the festival.”

The event is free and open to everyone from all avenues of life, and Ali added that Intersect also has a family-friendly aspect to it. To that end, she said, “there will be a kids’ table with facepainting, and then Sober One Six will be there to promote themselves.” Sober One Six, according to its website, is “an organization built on the foundation that sober individuals should feel welcomed and included.”

Preparations for this year’s event were already underway at the time of Harmon’s sudden and tragic passing, but Ali said the decision was made to soldier on, and also to celebrate its founder’s legacy by building the festival up into something even bigger and better.

“When Mickey was killed we had a meeting a week later, around the Monday after, and decided that he would be rolling in his grave if he knew we didn’t have it happen this year,” she said. “So we want to make it happen for him, and we wanted it to be bigger than it was before, and more of a party than it ever has been. That way we can really honor and cherish his legacy.”

Intersect has evolved over the years into its present form. launched by Harmon in 2018 (back then it was called Exist), it developed over the years into the wide-ranging, all-inclusive block party-style event it is today.

“Mickey has been doing this for at least, I think, six or seven years,” Ali noted, “but since 26 (Allen) opened it has become more of a bigger outdoor festivity, right outside of 26 and all the way from Main and Allen to Franklin and Allen.”

Moving forward, Ali said, she and her fellow organizers – Jordan Velazquez and Amber Martinez of La Cultura WNY, Amanda Gentzler of 26 Allen and Rachel Spade of Allentown Association – have elected to make the planning of Intersect a year-round endeavor.

With all of this year’s preparations behind them, Ali noted, Saturday’s all-day event will be the culmination of around six months’ work, a reflection of the pride, dedication and enthusiasm of an entire community.

“We’ve been working really hard to make this happen,” she said.