Tag Archives: parade

Jul

WELCOME TO LAVISH PRIDE 2012!

It’s that time of year again! Welcome to London. Welcome to our downtown. Welcome Pride London’s 30th anniversary & welcome to LAVISH! Every year thousands of people no matter lesbian, gay, bi, trans, queer or straight from surrounding area join us to celebrate diversity, equality & community in our amazing city of London!

For the first time in history, Pride London is celebrating in Victoria Park! It is our 30th anniversary and this celebration is anticipated to be the biggest turn out to date! So wear your “true colours” & “express yourself” because you were “born this way”! We encourage you to check out all the amazing events Pride London 2012 has in store for you: http://pridelondon.ca/

Each year LAVISH has brought the jungle inside the club! Jungle Fever has been an amazing experience during Pride London but we’re leaving the jungle behind to celebrate…PRIDE! The club will be decorated with festive colours of Pride and the people will bring the party!

We’ve expanded our complex this year with a new beautiful rooftop patio, ELEVATE! This means a bigger capacity for an even bigger and better celebration! LAVISH Nightclub is SO proud to be apart of the diverse city of London. Thank you for all the love and support. We invite everyone to come express yourself in love, music, rhythm and dance at London’s most diverse nightclub! Check out our exciting line up:

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THURSDAY, JULY 26th (DOORS OPEN 8PM – ELEVATE OPENS 10:30)
9:30pm-10:30 | The Fashion Show Presents: END OF DAYS inside LAVISH ($10 Cover from 8:00-10:00)
10:30pm | ELEVATE Rooftop Patio opens (NO COVER – $11 Pitchers All Night)
11:00pm | LAVISH Karaoke w/DJ AMY (NO COVER)
12:00pm | ELEVATE Rooftop Patio DJ Showcase: Emma Pace vs Lady Finesse (NO COVER)
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FRIDAY, JULY 27th (DOORS OPEN 8PM – $5 COVER ALL NIGHT)
10:00pm-2:00 | LOLLIPOP: Top40/Retro Night w/DJ Pablo inside LAVISH
11:00pm-2:00 | Lady Finesse (tech/house) on ELEVATE
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SATURDAY, JULY 28th (DAY – FREE EVENT)
2:00pm-5:00 | HEATSTROKE: Rooftop Patio Day Party w/DJ Josh Karmin (tech/house) on ELEVATE

SATURDAY, JULY 28th (NIGHT – DOORS OPEN 8PM – $5before 11PM/$10 after)
10:00pm-2:00 | SEDUCTIVE SATURDAY Pride Edition w/DJ Pablo (top40 remixes) inside LAVISH
10:00pm-2:00 | Josh Karmin (tech/house) on ELEVATE
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SUNDAY, JULY 29th (DOORS OPEN 4PM – NO COVER)
12:00 | JOIN OUR DANCE PARTY IN THE PARADE – Everyone Welcome!
4:00pm- | BBQ on ELEVATE
7:00-8:00 | Red Carpet Gala
8:00- CL | DJ Rob’s Brother (tech/house)
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CHECK OUT PHOTOS FROM LAVISH PRIDE 2011

Jul

[LOCAL NEWS] Pride growing up in London, Ontario (via Xtra!)

Pride growing up in London, Ontario

NEWS / New location makes the celebration stand out

Katie Toth / Toronto / Tuesday, July 10, 2012

Organizers of Pride in London, Ontario, are ready to come out—of the parking lot, that is.

Participants in the annual gay pride week there will be putting themselves in the front and centre of the city, ending with a weekend-long festival in Victoria Park.

Victoria Park is the city’s major event site, hosting other festivals like Ribfest and the Home County Folk Festival. For Pride vice president Andrew Rosser, taking the space is a sign that London Pride is ready to take its place as a highlight of the city.

“We’re excited to move into a mainstream festival location,” he says, noting it’s a watershed moment. Last year, the Pride festival was held in a parking lot at the corner of Clarence and King Streets, he says.

The weekend in the park will include a stage with kid-friendly entertainment, and a “pet zone” for dogs to drink water and play. The event ends with a Sunday afternoon post-parade party, featuring Canadian rock band The Cliks.

The full week of festivities also includes an all-ages Pride party, gay karaoke, and prayer service at the Metropolitan Community Church.

In London, Pride’s rocky history is a recent memory. “Every gay person in London, lesbian, gay, bisexual, [or] transgendered person, would say they know of or experienced an act of hatred in our city,” says Rosser. “Although I don’t think that’s unique to our city, we have to recognize that it exists.”

In 1995, organizers requested that then-mayor Dianne Haskett issue a city proclamation in support of their Pride march. She refused. The incident led to a three-year legal battle. In October of 1997, the Ontario Human Rights Commission fined the mayor and city $10,000 and ordered city council to make the proclamation.

Haskett, who is now a lawyer in Washington, DC, did not answer calls for comment.

Later, in 1999, the 3,500-strong parade found itself crossing paths with about 70 heterosexual “straight pride” counter-marchers. Some of the counter-marchers carried signs; one wore a construction helmet and used a bullhorn to denounce the gay event. Rosser says similar protests still happen. “There’s always a small group,” he says. “But it never affects our celebration.”

The city’s next mayor, Anne Marie DeCiccio-Best, wrote letters of support but never took part in the parade, Rosser says.

It wasn’t until 2011 that a new London mayor, Joe Fontana, made history and attended the city’s event. It was the same year Toronto’s Rob Ford broke tradition and refused to attend Pride Toronto, taking his family to the cottage instead.

Organizers are confident that this year, London Pride will be a week of celebration.

“We just really want everyone to come out, gay or straight,” Rosser says. “Pride is about celebrating together as one community.”

Pride London Festival runs from July 22 to 29. For more information visit pridelondon.ca

Written with archives from the Globe and Mail and Canadian Press.

(via Xtra!)

July 10, 2012 2012, downtown london, joe fontana, lgbt, parade, pride london, victoria park, xtra eddylavish LDOT, LGBTQ

Nov

[LGBTQ NEWS] Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras (changed to) Sydney Mardi Gras

Feature: Sydney Mardi Gras launch from mardigras on Vimeo.

Is Sydney Mardi Gras Going Through Ex-Gay Therapy?

Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras in Sydney—perhaps the largest and most infamous celebration in the world—has renamed itself “Sydney Mardi Gras,” as part of an effort to appeal to a larger, non-queer audience.

”We fought for this day, the day we could embrace the wider community and be inclusive,” Mardi Gras chairman Peter Urmson told the Sydney Morning Herald at a launch event Thursday. ”I think that whilst we are first and foremost a GLBTQI community organisation, we also are very open to all of our friends that do not necessarily identify within that alphabet soup.”

In addition to the name change, Sydney Mardi Gras producers introduced a sleek (and sexless) new logo and announced the talent for Mardi Gras 2012 on March 3—RuPaul, the Dame Edna Experience and dance duo Sneaky Sound System. [read more]

MY2CENTS
I have mixed feelings on the controversial name change. I get the organization is trying to make Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras more inclusive to “non-queers”. We have tried for so long to be recognized and integrated with the rest of world and now that we are (or are we?) it’s time to make it a celebration for everyone. By dropping the Gay & Lesbian this may help blur the lines between sexuality. This is what I want the world to be like – EQUAL.

On the other hand, with our without the ax of “Gay & Lesbian”, heterosexuals already share this special time of year with us. Folks of other culture and sexualities have always been welcomed and they know the celebration is about LGBTQ liberation!

We’ve come so far from protesting, marching, showing pride & now we celebrate. It makes sense to Proudly tell the world it is a Gay & Lesbian Celebration – and we welcome everyone to celebrate with us (if anything add that slogan into the marketing). If you lose *Gay & Lesbian* you may lose the root of where this celebration came from and I think that’s really important. Just because gay & lesbians nowadays are more socially connected in straight culture it doesn’t mean we are any less gay/lesbian. Just because Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras is now more open to straights it doesn’t make the celebration any less gay.

Either way I think it will still be a great celebration. What do you think?

November 21, 2011 2011, australia, Gay, Lesbian, london ontario pride, mardi gras, name, name change, parade, pride, sydney, Sydney Gay & Lesbian Mardi Gras eddylavish LGBTQ

Jul

WATCH: Downtown SuperGuides London Pride Parade mini-film

Make sure to check this amazing mini film created by the SuperGuides! They covered one of London’s best Pride parades the city has had for a long time. For the full blog post visit: THE SUPER GUIDES BLOG

July 28, 2011 downtown, float, joe fontana, lavish, london, mayor, parade, pride, superguides eddylavish LAVISH, LDOT, LGBTQ

Jul

TMA PARADE AWARDS: Toronto Pride Parade 2011

With an estimated crowd of more than one million people, Toronto’s annual Pride Parade was a huge success full of amazing sights, sounds and skin even with Mayor Rob Ford’s controversial absence. 6000 people marched down Younge Street making the 3hour parade the largest of its kind in Canada! TMA had front row views of the parade and voted on our favorite floats! Pictures courtesy of XTRA.ca

LAVISHTMA PARADE AWARDS! (winners labeled on top of picture in gallery)

MORE PICTURES COURTESY OF XTRA!

July 5, 2011 canada trust, Gay, Lesbian, parade, pride, rob ford, sofonda cox, TD, toronto eddylavish LGBTQ

Jun

NEWS: 51 Float Tires SLASHED At Chicago Pride

The Good and the Bad of Chicago Pride
By Trudy Ring

Sunday’s Chicago Gay Pride Parade, one of the nation’s largest, was marked by bad news and good news.

Some of the bad news came early in the day, when it was discovered that tires had been slashed on each of the 51 floats being stored at a float-building company several miles south of the parade route. The company’s owner discovered the damage about 5 a.m. Sunday; the floats were fine when he left the building at 8 the previous evening, so the damage occurred late Saturday night or very early Sunday.

“This is catastrophic,” Chuck Huser, owner of float provider Associated Attractions Enterprises, told Windy City Times Sunday morning. “This has never happened before, and we have been doing this since 1989.” He and his staff were able to repair all but three floats in time for the afternoon’s parade. There were 73 floats registered for the parade, with the remainder at other companies. [READ FULL STORY via ADVOCATE.com]

June 28, 2011 advocate, chicago pride, floats, Gay, lgbt, parade, pride, slashed, tires eddylavish LGBTQ