Organizers of Nanaimo’s Pride celebrations are anticipating this year’s events will be bigger.
Lauren Semple, Nanaimo Pride Society vice-president, said approximately 10,000 people attended the 2016 parade and she is expecting more at this year’s parade Saturday (June 10). The festival has grown too, she said.
“We already are the third-largest Pride celebration in B.C., we achieved that milestone last year, which is really excellent and this year we’re going to be even bigger and better, so we’ve got more floats, the parade route has grown and the amount of parade entries we have has grown,” Semple said.
Among the floats will be a contingent from Vancouver Island University, consisting of the Positive Space Alliance (lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgendered advocates) and unions on campus. They are crafting a narwhal float and according to Kathleen Reed, alliance steering committee member, it started as a joke.
“We thought we wanted to do a unicorn, because unicorns and rainbows go together, but then the person that was making our T-shirts couldn’t actually draw a unicorn … so it turned into a narwhal and we thought, since we’re a coastal university, it’s kind of like the unicorn of the sea,” said Reed.
Semple said there will be events the next two weekends.
Festivities start off with a flag raising ceremony Friday (June 9) between 6-8 p.m. at Nanaimo City Hall.
Saturday’s parade begins at noon at Victoria Crescent, heading up Commercial Street, onto Front Street and onward to Maffeo Sutton Park.
Following that, Semple said the family-friendly Pride festival at Maffeo Sutton will run from 1-5 p.m., with vendors, food trucks, a beer garden, bouncy castle and face painting.
An after-party event will be held at Evolve Nightclub between 10 p.m. and 2 a.m. and an art show runs at 78 Wharf Street between Friday and Sunday (June 11).
Celebrations continue June 16 with a youth dance (18 years old and under) at the German Cultural Centre between 7-11 p.m. and also a comedy show at the Old City Station Pub from 7-10:30 p.m.
A Pride pet parade goes June 17 beginning at 10:15 a.m. at Maffeo Sutton Park and another dance (19 years old and up) will be held at Beban Park social centre between 8 p.m. and 1 a.m.
For more information, go to www.nanaimopride.org.