Festivities for White Party started as early as this afternoon, with Palm Springs Mayor Pro Tem Jeffrey Bernstein presenting a proclamation to kick off the weekend.

The proclamation took place right in front of Jeffrey Sanker’s Palm Springs Walk of Star, honoring the original founder of the White Party.

“Today we gave an official proclamation from the City of Palm Springs recognizing this weekend as White Party weekend.” Palm Springs Mayor Pro Tem Bernstein says.

The Mayor Pro Tem says this weekend’s White Party is much more than a giant festival.

“While there’s been a lot of difficult things happening in parts of the country in parts of the world, Palm Springs is always a safe haven for LGBTQ plus people, and people just all types in our city.”

To represent the festival, the White Party’s Global Executive Producer adds on-to what today’s event was really about.

“Today is a proclamation kind of a memory of Jeffrey Sanker, the founder of White Party which was started back in 1989, and it’s sort of a thank you to him for starting this amazing event really made a home for LGBTQ community for so many years.” says Chris Diamond, the Global Executive Producer for White Party Palm Springs.

The festival is coming back for the second time post pandemic, continuing to help tourism for the City of Palm Springs.

“This event was a significant revenue driver for our city, and over the years, it’s raised 10’s of millions of dollars from visitors and tourists who go into hotels, the White Party, go into our restaurants and stores and sometimes actually end up moving here afterwards.” the Mayor Pro Tem says.

With the passing of the original founder of the White Party Palm Springs in 2021, many are glad to see his tradition lives on.

“This is something really special. I’m glad it carried on after the passing of Jeffrey Sanker and I’m glad that the new team is keeping it going vibrant and alive and adding more and more new things to write, and it’s really a testament to what a legend this is for Palm Springs.”

Tickets for the festival are still selling on the official White Party Palm Springs website, with the first event starting tomorrow afternoon at 12 p.m.

Palm Springs Mayor Pro Tem Kicks Off White Party With Proclamation