Diversity is being well catered for in next month's Auckland Pride Festival according to the Festival organiser, Julian Cook. Past Festivals have been taken to task for being too narrow in their focus, with many events appealing to "comfortably-off white gay men," in the words of one attendee at one of Pride's feedback hui last year. Cook says a number of developments for the Festival this year mean there should be "a lot" more events more reflective of the wide-ranging sexual, ethnic, age, financial and even geographic aspects of the glbti communities. "We have the strongest programme of events focused on women the Festival has had in years," Cook says. "Rainbow Youth have facilitated quite a number of events for young people and Mika Haka are back with their youth-orientated events as well. There'll be a good range of events for Asian, Maori and Pacific people and a huge number of events are going to be free." Cook says there is a wide geographical spread of event venues as well. "From Dykes in Mikes in Henderson to the When can I see you again exhibition in Otara we're spread across the Auckland isthmus. Many of the events are now being listed on the Pride Festival's website.
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News staff
First published: Wednesday, 11th January 2017 - 9:53am