More than 900 people, along with more than 40 businesses and nonprofits attended the fifth annual South Bay Pride event, formerly known as Gay Day in South Bay, at Memorial Park in Chula Vista Sunday.

This year’s event, organized by South Bay Alliance (SBA), included significant changes, among them a new location and more entertainment and vendors. Attendance more than quadrupled compared to previous years.

Last year’s event drew 200 people.

Organizers were thrilled with this year’s 933 attendees.

“Honestly, we were expecting around 400, and anything beyond 400 we would have considered wonderful. Once we hit 600, it was so beyond success,” said Dae Elliot, president of SBA.

Until this year, the Pride festivities took place at Heritage Park, a suburban park in eastern Chula Vista. By moving the celebration to Memorial Park in downtown Chula Vista, organizers wanted to bring more visibility to the event.

“… This year we wanted to go big and go more bold and bring it to the heart of Chula Vista [which] is more of an open venue,” said Marci Bair, vice president and secretary of SBA.

Changing the event’s name may also have contributed to its success.

“We went back and forth,” Elliott said. “The idea was to change it to something more general, more inclusive, more LGBT and friends, versus one name; and I think the term Pride tends to play better than gay – it’s a generational thing.”

SBA is also working with No on 8, the campaign to educate voters and encourage them vote no on Proposition 8, which would amend the California Constitution to eliminate the right of same-sex couples to marry. The campaign had a vendor’s booth with organizers speaking to attendees about the proposition.

“We’re using South Bay Pride as a launching pad to educate [people] on No on 8,” Bair said.

Following in the footsteps of other Pride celebrations, South Bay Pride honored several long-term same-sex couples.

“We thought it was very important, particularly for this year, to show the South Bay community and San Diego in general that the gay community has many long-term couples that have waited many years to get married,” Bair said.

This year’s honored couples were Pat Washington and Maggie Allington, who have been together 16 years; Tom Felkner and Bob Lehman, together 15 years; and Doug O’Donnel and Gary Klein, and Jan Garbosky and Bonny Russell, both together 20 years.

Attendees and vendors said having Pride in Chula Vista is significant for many reasons.

“It’s a very important event,” said Antonio Munoz sitting at a booth for Bienestar. “It’s not big, but it’s the first step to moving out of Hillcrest and North Park, because there is family outside of Hillcrest and North Park.”

“I’ve been going to San Diego Pride probably for the past three years, but it’s my first time hearing about the one in Chula Vista,” said one Chula Vista resident. “I like it. It’s really bringing a small community on a microscopic level together.”

Some attendees said they hadn’t seen advertisements for the event.

“It was kind of poorly advertised. I didn’t hear about it. I really didn’t know it existed,” said Travis Myers of North Park.

Bair created Gay Day in South Bay in 2003 and organized it until it folded in 2006. SBA, of which Bair is one of the founding members, revived the event in 2007.

“We started the South Bay Alliance to connect residents to business owners and residents in the South Bay area. There are lots of gay-owned businesses in the South Bay area and we want to promote them,” Bair said.

SBA also organizes mixers throughout the year. The next mixer will be at South Bay Fish and Grill on Oct. 8. The mixer will be a fund-raiser for the No on 8 campaign. SBA is also seeking more coalition partners to attend its business meeting on Sept. 8. For more information about the mixer, meetings and other SBA events, visit www.southbayalliance.net.