The management of a well-known gay venue on Sydney's Oxford Street is pushing to launch a Pride Festival in the city. A meeting of key community stakeholders and business holders met at the Stonewall Hotel last week in an effort to gather support to reinstate the Festival, reports SX magazine. LGBT Pride is celebrated in most major cities around the world in June each year, commemorating June 1969's Stonewall Riots at the original Stonewall Hotel in New York. Sydney's Stonewall Hotel has continued to mark Pride in June each year, but is hoping to get the community at large on board for 2009's fortieth anniversary of Stonewall. Stonewall Hotel's Marketing Manager Glenn Hansen says there's room in Sydney for both an annual Mardi Gras Festival and a Pride Festival. "I would see Pride as more grassroots than Mardi Gras. They would have different purposes, Mardi Gras is more about celebration and Pride would be more about fostering community spirit."
Credit: GayNZ.com Daily News Staff
First published: Thursday, 16th April 2009 - 9:40am