PHOTOS: Albany Pride brings in historic crowd Saturday

ALBANY, Ore. (KOIN) -- Saturday's 'Albany Pride' event grew to a historic size as the Willamette Valley community celebrated love, acceptance, and representation.

Downtown Albany was crawling with vendors, drag queens, and a joyous group of LGBTQ+ community members and allies. Several city blocks were closed to traffic for the event with the main stage in front of the Linn County Courthouse. Albany Pride was founded in 2017 by Keith Kolkow who said, "I'm just so happy all these kids feel seen and safe today in their own community."

Saturday's event started with a pride march through the streets of Albany followed by a drag performance. Albany native and now Portland's live singing drag queen, Nicole Onoscopi said, "It's really beautiful to see so many queer people out when there wasn't much queer representation growing up. So, I've been holding back tears all day."

The multi-block event's large crowd surpassed Albany Pride's humble start in 2017.