Auckland Pride announces key dates for 2020 Festival

Auckland Pride is thrilled to announce the first key dates for the 2020 Auckland Pride Festival. Since 2013, the Auckland Pride Festival has reached hundreds of thousands of people across Aotearoa, making it the country’s largest Pride Festival. We have a rich history of successful, fabulous, queer events - and the 2020 Festival, running from the 1st to the 16th of February, will continue that tradition.

Auckland Pride is committed to growing the 2020 Festival, ensuring it is more accessible, diverse and community-led. Connecting, liberating and celebrating our queer communities, the Festival is an empowering showcase of the breadth of talent in Tāmaki Makaurau. 2020 will bring back some festival favourites produced by Auckland Pride, as well as treasured events created by our talented community.

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Auckland Pride is pleased to announce the first key dates for the 2020 Pride Festival are:
• 1 February 2020: Auckland Pride Gala
• 8 February 2020: OurMarch
• 8 February 2020: OurParty
• 9 February 2020: Ending HIV Big Gay Out
• 14-15 February 2020: Same Same but Different Writers’ Festival
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A cherished event in the Festival Programme, the Pride Gala is back to showcase the brilliance of our queer artists and bring our community together for a fabulous night of performance and celebration. Auckland Pride Chair Cissy Rock is, “thrilled about the return of the Gala to the festival programme. With a refreshed vision, a more queer dress code and more accessible tickets, the 2020 Pride Gala will once again be a highlight of the festival and one you won’t want to miss out on!”

The introduction of #ourmarch in 2019 provided Auckland with an energetic, community-centred evolution of the Parade. The shift in purpose from spectating to participating resulted in a grassroots, accessible, authentically-queer event. For 2020, we are building on the post-march celebration with OurParty, a fun-filled post-march event with more food, more entertainment and more space! “We received overwhelmingly positive feedback from OurMarch and are excited to see it return to the streets of Tāmaki Makaurau,” says Rock. “With more time and greater ambition, we aim to more than double the participant numbers of OurMarch, reclaiming the streets of Auckland for our queer whānau on the 8th of February.”

The Auckland Pride Festival relies on the support of our community, and we are proud to continue our partnerships with organisations who put on significant events throughout the festival. The Ending HIV Big Gay Out and Same Same but Different Writers’ Festival are two of those events. We’re ecstatic to have them be the first events programmed for the 2020 Festival. “Community events are at the heart of Pride,” says Director of Pride, Max Tweedie. “The Big Gay Out draws more than 10,000 people to Coyle Park for a fun, fabulous, family-friendly day of celebration and plays a vital role in the festival. The Same Same but Different Writers’ Festival is an excellent showcase of the literary talent in our queer communities, and over the past three years has delivered bold events, strong attendance and stimulating conversations.”

“With more key events and dates to be announced in the next few months, Auckland Pride is in a strong position to achieve the largest festival in our history,” says Tweedie. “We have a dedicated team, committed stakeholders and a passionate community. We’re looking forward to working with event organisers across Tāmaki Makaurau once registrations open in the coming weeks, to continue building a festival programme that will be bold, fierce and unapologetically queer.”

To meet our ambitious targets for the 2020 Festival, Auckland Pride is expanding its team. We are seeking applications for a Festival Producer and OurMarch Producer (including OurParty) from today and will be seeking applications for a Gala Producer in the coming months. Tweedie says “our complete team will bring a breadth of experience to the festival and enable a larger programme that will be more reflective of our diverse communities. It’s encouraging for the festival to be in a position to hire talented community members to ensure that Pride 2020 is more accessible, has a greater audience, and authentic participation from more of our communities.”

Applications for Festival Producer and OurMarch Producer are open until 10pm, Sunday 18th August 2019. Job Descriptions for the above positions can be found at https://aucklandpride.org.nz/media-centre/

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