The Dinah Is Turning Palm Springs into the Ultimate Queer Friendcation
For 35 years, The Dinah has given queer women, trans and non-binary people a reason to meet in Palm Springs. This year, it feels like a full-on friendcation.
35 Years Later, We’re Still Showing Up
The Dinah’s story stretches back to 1991, when its first gathering in Palm Springs drew more than 1,000 women and sold out, offering an early glimpse of just how much appetite existed for spaces created specifically for queer women.
What followed would grow into one of the largest and longest-running events of its kind, establishing Palm Springs as an annual meeting place for generations of LGBTQ+ women from around the world.
Over the years, The Dinah has built a cultural legacy that extends well beyond its famous pool parties. This year, that legacy enters an exciting new era under the leadership of Bella Barkow and Rose Garcia of BellaRose Productions.
Both have deep histories with The Dinah itself, giving its next chapter something particularly special: an opportunity to honor what generations of attendees have loved about the weekend while continuing to evolve it for the community gathering in Palm Springs today.
The heart of The Dinah has never simply been the party; it is what becomes possible when thousands of queer women are given a space created with them at the center. It is the freedom to celebrate without shrinking yourself, to see your community reflected everywhere you look, and to meet friends whose lives might never have crossed yours otherwise.
For one weekend, belonging is not something you have to search for, it is built into the experience. That has always been the why behind The Dinah, and it is exactly why weekends like this continue to matter.
A New Generation Takes Over Palm Springs
The energy of that new chapter can already be felt in this year’s lineup. Hayley Kiyoko will headline Saturday night’s Hollywood Party alongside The Aces, while Da Brat and British singer-songwriter Sasha Keable take over Friday’s Black and White Ball.
Blimes Brixton is set for the G-Spot Pool Party, Mama Duke will perform during Sunday’s Sapphic Splash, and Cameron Esposito leads this year’s comedy programming alongside Pink Foxx and host Abe Farrelly.
Across five days, Hilton Palm Springs and Hotel Zoso become much more than host hotels. They become the center of a temporary queer neighborhood where pool parties spill into nights out, friends get ready together before events, familiar faces keep reappearing throughout the
weekend, and a conversation that starts by the pool on Friday can turn into someone you’re exchanging numbers with by Sunday.
Taking the Friendcation to Dinah
We have more ways to find one another than ever before, yet access to people is not the same as truly knowing them. That is part of what makes The Dinah so powerful. Thousands arrive in Palm Springs for the music, pool parties, and celebration, but the real magic often happens in between, when strangers become friends and a weekend away becomes a reminder of how good it feels to experience community beyond a screen.
It is that shared belief in the power of human connection that brings The Amistara to The Dinah this year as a Community Sponsor, alongside SCWB Media and The Amistara Founder & CEO Kirstie Nicole as a featured attendee.
Built around friendship-first queer community, The Amistara is championing something The Dinah has demonstrated for decades: when we create spaces for people to find one another, we create the possibility for friendships and chosen family that can last far beyond the weekend.
This year, The Amistara is inviting attendees to make The Dinah a friendcation. Bring the friends you keep promising to travel with, split a room with up to four people and make a weekend of it, or come solo and leave room for someone new. Because you may book The Dinah for the lineup, the parties, and Palm Springs, but the best thing you bring home might be the people you meet there.
Palm Springs Is Waiting
Festival passes, individual event tickets, and hotel packages are available for The Dinah 2026, with Hilton Palm Springs and Hotel Zoso serving as the official host properties.
Attendees can use KIRSTIE10 for a discount on The Dinah weekend hotel and tickets.
For 35 years, people have arrived at The Dinah not knowing exactly what the weekend would hold. They came for the music, the sunshine, the pool parties, and the freedom of being surrounded by queer community, but they also came home with stories they couldn’t have planned, friendships they didn’t have before, and memories tied forever to a few days in the desert.
Maybe that is why The Dinah continues to mean so much. There will always be another reason to postpone the trip, another busy week, or another promise in the group chat that one day everyone will finally go. Let this be the year you say yes. Book the flight, share the room, pack the swimsuit, and meet us in Palm Springs. You already know what’s on the lineup. You just don’t know who you’re going to meet yet.
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