The 46th New York Pride March is the biggest celebration of LBGTQ pride in the world. Brands are increasingly getting in on the action. This year, official corporate sponsorship of the march reached $1.7 million.
There are 56 corporate sponsors of this year's march, on five different tiers of sponsorship, according to Pride managing director Chris Frederick. They paid an average of $30,000 for the honor, according to data obtained by FORBES.
They represent all kinds of industries, from financial institutions like
"We take a more holistic approach to our packages and you need to donate to the idea of NYC Pride Week as a whole," Frederick told FORBES in an email. Rates range from $12,500 for Bronze sponsorship to $65,000 for Platinum sponsorship. It costs $175,000 to be the presenting sponsor.
That's just one slice of the money Pride gets from corporations. For-profit companies pay between $2,900 and $8,000 to participate in the march, depending on whether they feature marchers, vehicles or floats. Floats cost $8,000 each for large corporate participants, versus $2,829 for small businesses and $1,699 for nonprofits.
In 2014 Witeck-Combs Communications, a marketing firm specializing in the gay marketplace, estimated that the purchasing power of the U.S. adult LGBT population was $884 billion.
