Jonathan Smith just prior to the start of last year's Pride Parade This year's Auckland Pride Parade coordinator Jonathan Smith withdrew his proposal to run next year's parade after the Pride Festival Trust advised him at the last minute of a structural change which would have seen him no longer reporting directly to the Trust Board. Smith, who created last year's inaugural parade, was reported by GayNZ.com Daily News last month to have not made himself available again. Smith says his contract to run the first parade, back in February, gave him right of first refusal for next year's event. "I created a whole proposal for what I would do next year, based on all the work I had had to do for the first parade, and submitted it to the board," he says. "Negotiations had progressed almost to the signing point when they suddenly advised me that, unlike last year, I would not be responsible to, and report to, the board itself but to an intermediary I felt that would have compromised me. I don't believe I would have had full logistic and artistic control over the parade, so I withdrew my proposal." The Trust Board has confirmed the change in structure with the Parade Coordinator position now reporting to the Festival Director. This year's Festival director, Julian Cook, has been confirmed as returning to oversee next year's festival. "We found that with the Festival Director and Parade Coordinator both reporting to the board independently there were things falling through the cracks this year," says board co-chair Megan Cunningham-Adams. "We had hoped to have an overall executive officer position established for the coming festival, reporting to the board and with the other positions reporting to that position... unfortunately funding for that didn't come through. Details of next year's Auckland Pride Festival, including confirmed dates, have not yet been released by the Board but are expected to be available soon.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Friday, 13th September 2013 - 10:26am