on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of Memorial Day Weekend.

This year the Splash Beach Fest hours are 10 a.m.

People from all over the country bring their tents, their coolers, and their state flags and claim their territory right on the beach it’s fun to see all the people and where they’re from! The Splash Beach Fest happens each and every year on big stages directly on Pensacola Beach’s Park East. Here’s a rundown of the main circuit parties going on during Memorial Day Weekend, as well as a guide of the gay bars and clubs in Pensacola. In the 1990s, local nightclub owner Johnny Chisholm, partnering with New Orleans-based Ambush Magazine, started organizing large circuit parties both on Pensacola Beach and at the Civic Center in downtown, across from his nightclub Emerald City. They were so impressed with Pensacola that word spread, and by the 1980s gay businesses were actively courting gay tourists and their dollars. The weekend started in the 1970s when locals invited their friends from Atlanta and South Florida to come to town for the weekend. Pensacola’s Memorial Day Weekend is considered the unofficial “start” of the summer circuit party season, and with over 50,000 people converging on the northern Gulf coast each year for the fun beach parties and revelry, the weekend definitely starts the season off right!