In a break with tradition, the Mayor of Dunedin will be absent from Pride Week celebrations in the city this year, as it clashes with other commitments. Pride Week co-ordinator Alan Marshall had asked new Mayor Peter Chin to appear in drag at the closing night Off The Rails party at the Dunedin Railway Station. "I was going to get him to do was to do a three-minute speech, but to stop it being just a rigid speech, I thought a bit of flamboyance, dressed in drag, that'd be fine," he says. "If he wasn't booked that night, he would've come. Through his receptionist, that's what he said." Chin's predecessor Sukhi Turner was a Pride Week stalwart, and last year officially opened Pride Week events at the annual Pride Art Exhibition in the Community Art Gallery, but Chin was not offered this opportunity. Marshall hopes another speaker will be able to take Chin's place in drag at the closing night event. The Pride Art Exhibition is being touted as one of this year's event highlights, along with Rainbow Day in the Octagon on Wednesday 13 July. The Metro Cinema is making up for the absence of an Out Takes film festival in Dunedin this year by running a handful of GLBT-themed films. The theme of Pride Week this year is "walking together", a theme which represents partnership, says Pride Dunedin Youth spokesman Nathan Brown. “This year's theme honours New Zealand's recognition of the first same-sex-couples to unite under new Civil Union legislation, but also highlights the partnership required between our community and the wider community to tackle the problem of safety in our schools, and that's what our community is poised to now tackle.” Pride Week events run from7 – 17 July, with the New Zealand AIDS Foundation, and Public Health South acting as principal sponsors of the festivities.