Brad Plunkett, co-chair of Circle City IN Pride 2008, says the parade and festival aim to be both diverse and family-friendly. (Michelle Pemberton / Indy.com)

As co-chair of Circle City IN Pride 2008, Brad Plunkett helps coordinate the efforts of some 100 volunteers and 140 vendors, all of whom put on a festival attended by tens of thousands. On June 14 alone, more than 30,000 guests are expected to flock to Downtown for the annual parade and festival celebrating gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgender pride.

In his fourth year with Pride, the BioScrip pharmacist finds himself steeped in phone messages and e-mails, thanks in part to an expanded, now-weeklong schedule of events, which start June 7.

"We've tried to get some very diverse things, so that it's not necessarily for one group of people," Plunkett says. "There should be something in all of this that appeals to somebody and to everybody."

In between pharmacy duties and Pride meetings, Plunkett talked to Indy.com the Magazine about his favorite Pride memories, the challenges of entertaining thousands of guests and what the first-time visitor can expect.

What's one of your most memorable Pride moments?

Answer: Being part of the entertainment committee, I'm up on the stage a lot. And the thing that always gets me is being able to look out and see all of the people ..... to see that group of people come together -- I mean, we don't have a lot of events throughout the year that brings the community together quite like Pride does.

Has anything in particular about the Pride celebration surprised you?

All of the different people that come together. ..... When you walk through all of our vendors, we have such a diverse group of people -- we just have some unique things. A lot of (the vendors) are gay- and lesbian-owned businesses, and this is someplace that they feel they can come and get some good exposure to the community.

What's the biggest challenge in putting together a festival of this size?

Getting enough volunteers is always a big issue. Everybody wants to come and have fun (as opposed to volunteering). And then, of course, there's the cleanup that comes afterward.

What's the one point you'd like to get across to people who have never attended the Pride celebration?

Come with an open mind. We try really hard to make this an event that will appeal to anyone -- gay, lesbian, straight, questioning. And we want it to be a family event. So we're careful about what entertainment we put on the stage, and the vendors and things like that. We try to be very conscious of that, so that anybody can come into our festival and not feel out of place.

Now that Pride has expanded to a weeklong celebration, do you foresee even more growth?

We're at the point now where we are going to have to look at possibly a larger event space. We love being at University Park. It's nice being able to end the parade there, because we keep the parade on Mass Avenue. But we're almost at that point now where we don't have enough space to do everything that we potentially could do.

We try really hard to make this an event that will appeal to anyone .....

Circle City IN Pride 2008 Parade & Festival

When: June 14; parade, 10 a.m.; festival, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Parade: Massachusetts Avenue to Vermont Street to University Park.

Festival: University Park, on Vermont Street between Meridian and Pennsylvania streets.

Cost: Free; donations accepted for Pride Festival.

Info: Visit www.indyprideinc.com/Pride.html for a full schedule of events, from June 7 to 15.

-- By Julie Cope Saetre / Indy.com correspondent