Pride Month is just around the corner, and with it comes a slew of fantastic speakers, events, dance parties, panel discussions, screenings, show-tunes karaoke and more. We’re featuring exclusive interviews with those helping make Pride 2016 the best one yet.

Bobby Beckett is a queer trans community activist with a background in events and large-scale productions. They have been immersed in Toronto’s club, theater and dance communities since the late 1990s and have organized thousands of events. Beckett is also the former owner of the legendary west end queer bar, The Henhouse.

SDTC: Who would be on your dream team lineup for a Pride event?

BB: It’s the dream team lineup I’ve put together for South Stage this year.

What’s the trickiest part of your job? Best part?

Trickiest part of events production is all the moving parts. It’s controlled chaos at its best. The best part about what I do is I get to create and collaborate with super talented and amazing individuals all the time and together we get to make magic happen.

Can you walk us through how your team brings it all together – how do you decide on who gets featured?

It all starts with an idea and its goes from there. As a curator, I’m the dreamer. I consult first with the community around me about what people want to hear and see. From there I put together programming that I think will blow people’s minds and then take that to the larger team. A lot of the time it’s budget, space and venue limitations that determine the featured artists.

What are you most looking forward to at this year’s Pride?

This entire Pride month so many events throughout the city with so many great venues partnering to make some wild and wonderful stuff happen. Specifically though: Kim Chi at Starry Night @ 519 June 30, Vag Halen @ South Stage July 1, Viktoria Modesta @ South Stage July 2 and FIST all day on Sunday July 3 @ Central Stage.

What is the first thing you will do after Pride’s all over for this year?

Get outta of the city for a few days ASAP.