Twin Cities Pride brings the LGBTQ and broader community together to celebrate diversity and foster inclusion. Every June, Pride week attracts over 500,000 people to Minneapolis for a series of events including the Rainbow Run, Twin Cities Pride Festival, and Ashley Rukes GLBT Pride Parade.
With half a million people celebrating Pride, an event app is essential—and they had one. But dated technology, a cluttered interface, and no way to update content left event organizers—and users—feeling anything but celebratory. So when Twin Cities Pride asked Software for Good to develop an app for the event, we jumped at the chance.
The native iOS app brings Twin Cities Pride’s vibrant visual system to life, using bold colors and custom iconography to group like events for quick identification. Special attention was given to the festival map, which relies on geolocation and color coding to help guide visitors through the many vendor booths and activities. By clicking on an individual map dot, users can view detailed event or vendor information. Attendees also have the option to “heart” vendors or events they’d like to visit, later accessing them on a favorites tab prominently displayed in the main navigation.
Unlike many white labeled or off-the-shelf event apps, the Twin Cities Pride app includes a comprehensive list of parade participants, so attendees can learn more about participating groups as they go by. And a custom content management system gives the Twin Cities Pride team the tools they need to make updates quickly and independently.
In 2018, we debuted the Android app in time for Pride weekend, and updated the iOS version to reach our biggest number of users yet.
Celebrating—and navigating—Pride has never been easier.