OUT IN THE PARK
Launching Wellington Pride Festival
It started when being gay was illegal, now it’s drawing crowds of more than 10,000 people who enjoy hanging out, chilling out, and just living out.
Out In The Park kicked off the two-week Wellington Pride Festival on Saturday with stalls, as well as performing drag queens and kings, comedians and singers.
The event first ran in 1986 as the Gay and Lesbian Fair as a way to boost support for homosexual law reform.
Organising group Out Wellington co-chair Steven Mawhinney said this year’s fair was ‘‘awesome’’ with the number of visitors boosted by good weather.
The exact number of visitors had not been collated but he said there looked to have been easily ‘‘10,000-plus’’ attending on the day – one of the biggest crowds he’d seen.
‘‘It was a beautiful day.’’ Festival highlights included the Candy Land Youth Ball on March 3, for youths aged 13 to 18, and the Pride Parade, which would run on the event’s final day – March 10.
The upcoming youth ball and a picnic in Wellington Botanic Gardens were a way for the festival to get more young people involved, Mawhinney said.
Out Wellington was an overarching organising committee but most individual events were run by members of the community. The capital’s festival follows on from Auckland’s Pride Parade, which was held on February 18 and drew crowds down Ponsonby Rd, including Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern – the first time a sitting prime minister had marched in the parade. Auckland’s parade showcased a new rainbow-coloured police car, which was also on display at Out In The Park.
Police commissioner Mike Bush said the vehicle was a visible representation of the force’s commitment to diversity. ‘‘It’s important to encourage staff to show pride in the communities they represent.’’ For much of the first year that Wellington’s pride event was held – 1986 – New Zealand men having consensual sex risked prosecution and imprisonment. The act decriminalising consensual sex for men aged over 16 took effect in August of that year.