This year’s entertainment lineup for San Diego LGBT Pride’s two-day festival in Balboa Park highlights local and national talent for their 30th anniversary celebration, “Strength in Numbers”. More than 16 performers will take to the main stage during the festival, taking place July 31 and August 1, and including headliners Berlin with Terri Nunn, dance diva Kristine W. and returning favorites like Sue Palmer, Danielle LoPresti and the Masses and Skott Freedman. Immediately following the festival on Sunday, August 1 at 9:00 p.m., k.d. lang will perform with the San Diego Symphony at the Starlight Bowl.

“To celebrate our 30th anniversary, we decided to add a big name concert to the weekend festival and k.d. lang was a good fit as an openly out lesbian,” said Suanne Pauley, executive director of San Diego LGBT Pride, in an e-mail. “We are very excited to have her and the San Diego Symphony performing at our event!”

However, lang will not perform at the festival site, and tickets to her event with the symphony are sold separately. Pauley said that the overwhelming turnout for Cyndi Lauper’s performance at the Pride festival in 2002, in which several security gates were torn down by audience members, was not a factor in the decision to feature smaller acts at Pride this year.

The festival itself features ’80s favorite Berlin performing a string of their classic hits including “The Metro” and the Top Gun anthem “Take My Breath Away”, and Kristine W., who will perform her repertoire of Billboard dance hits including “Some Lovin’” which was featured on Showtime’s “Queer As Folk”. Additionally, La Internacional Sonora Show brings their acclaimed blend of Latin music and dancing to the main stage, as does pop and jazz diva Maxine Nightingale, whose “Right Back Where We Started From” topped the charts in 24 countries in the 1970s.

Toronto-based Kelly and the Kelly Girls will perform their signature brand of rock, which has been compared to the styles of David Bowie and Iggy Pop. The mixed-gender country rock group Girlyman plays as well. The group has performed at Club Passim in Boston and Fez in New York City, and has been featured on the PBS newsmagazine In the Life for their broad range of musical styles. San Francisco-based Alicia Champion will also perform; she has earned a devoted San Diego following due to regular appearances all over the city, and her gritty rock n’ roll sound has garnered accolades in the national press.

The musical lineup also includes a long list of local performers, both returning favorites and those new to the scene.

“We really like to involve our local talent so I always try to fit them into the schedule,” Pauley said.

Pop singer-songwriter Skott Freedman, who recently relocated to San Diego, brings his piano vocal talents to the festival. Freedman, a bisexual activist who was mentioned as one of Out Magazine’s up and coming performers to watch this year, recently toured in Australia for the Gay Games and played at the Sydney Opera House. His latest CD, Some Company, has already received positive reviews internationally.

Lauren DeRose, who recently released the acoustic demo “Little Red Jacket”, is well known on the San Diego music scene for her aggressive guitar style and emotionally charged lyrics, and is considered by many to be San Diego’s hottest up-and-coming lesbian singer-songwriter. DeRose and Freedman have performed together at several local venues, and DeRose is a regular at the bi-monthly Thursday night spoken word series, Siren, at David’s Coffeehouse.

In addition to returning favorites Sue Palmer – the popular “Queen of Boogie-Woogie” piano – and award-winning activist rock band Danielle LoPresti and The Masses, guitarist-songwriter Mary Dolan, San Diego male jazz-pop vocal ensemble In aChord and the recently formed cheer squad San Diego Cheer will take to the stage.

Rounding out the bill is Sir Kippy Marks, an accomplished violinist whose original compositions are combined with acoustics and electronic rhythms, and The Great American Yankee Freedom Band, a Los Angeles-based marching band formed in 1978 that includes the Hollywood Wind Ensemble and a number of smaller ensembles.

A tribute to the last three decades of Pride will take place at the Stonewall Rally at the Organ Pavilion in Balboa Park on August 30.

Festival admission is $12 per day, or $20 for a two-day pass. Festival hours are from 12:00 noon to 10:00 p.m. on Saturday, July 31,and 11:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. on Sunday, August 1. Tickets for k.d. lang at the Starlight Bowl are $46.50 for general admission or $100 for limited VIP seats in the first few rows. For more information, call the Pride office at (619) 297-7683.