[Reader hint: read part one and part two of our reporters' impressions of the Auckland Pride Parade 2016.] As we wait for the Auckland Pride Parade to resume and wave to the Holding Our Own parents of glbti folk group we ask twenty randomly chosen spectators where they've come from to view the Ponsonby Road spectacle. Eight are from Ponsonby, three from "South Auckland" two from Sandringham, one each from Pakuranga, "North Shore," "West Auckland," Avondale and the CBD. And there are two tourists from South Africa. The ANZ Bank win's this year's most balloons award, taking a neat idea from Body Positive last year and pumping it up by an order of magnitude. The Falcons rugby team are a hit, passing balls back and forth and looking hunky en masse. The Fletcher Building/Winstone quarries entry is a Mad-Max-inspired homage to things big, grunty and metallic. The're pumping our high-energy music and their DJ gets our award for hottest DJ of the parade. By comparison the ZM radio float is rather insipid. A bit of a low-budget trailer, a few folks done up in rented fairytale royalty costumes, half-heartedly blowing a few bubbles and nothing glbt or i in sight. This from the station that got its coverage of the first legal same-sex marriages sooo right when so many others were sooo abysmal. The marching boys made up for in the impressiveness of their pecs and abs for their smaller than usual numbers and a small collection of community organisations provided colour and beaming smiles as the parade sort of petered out at the end. In past years (in fact, right back to the Hero Parade days) a dramatic final float has created a smash-bang ending, sometimes with fire cannons and extravagant drag creations, to sum the whole parade up. Not sure whose idea it was to exhume poor old True Bliss for a glbti parade but they brought up the rear swathed in some uninspiring classical roman tat and doing nothing special to The Weathergirls' It's Raining Men - an iconic song for gay men a couple of decades ago due to its gloriously homoerotic video. No-one seemed to give a toss. So we'll provide our conclusion with two random images of the 2016 Auckland Pride Parade which we think better represent what, under all the extravagance and dazzle, is at the True Heart of the glbti Pride Parade, (incorporating a touch of the Pacific and a nod to some Aussie sisters here for the Out and Loud Choral Festival): GayNZ.com Daily News reporters - 22nd February 2016
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News reporters
First published: Monday, 22nd February 2016 - 10:41pm