Sydney WorldPride 2023
Down Under in Rainbow!
We’re already counting down the days until Sydney WorldPride 2023. Why? Because it’s going to be iconic, obviously. Sydney might be best known for its glistening harbor, world-famous opera house, and lively LGBTQ+ scene, but in 2023, Australia’s LGBTQ+ capital will be making headlines for being the official host city for WorldPride. This will be WorldPride's 8th foray, and we can’t wait!
Running from February 15 to March 5, Sydney WorldPride 2023 will join forces with the city’s annual Mardi Gras for one incredible celebration of love, pride, and fun! For 17 days, expect a jam-packed line-up of entertainment, with the event welcoming over 20 different international performers and several local icons, including Kylie Minogue and Courtney Act. With so much action set to take place, Sydney WorldPride 2023 is tipped to be the city’s most significant event since the Sydney Olympics back in 2000.
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A program with the most: WorldPride 2023
While parties and special pride-related events will be kicking off on February 15, the official Sydney World Pride Opening Concert: Live and Proud, will be taking place on February 24, from 7 pm-9 pm. The special event will transpire in The Domain, Sydney's main park, and be hosted by local entertainers Casey Donovan and Courtney Act.
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Gates for The Domain will be open from 3 pm; however, if you can't make it in person, don't worry, The Sydney World Pride Opening Ceremony will also be broadcast around the nation live on ABC TV. Full details of the evening’s program are still to be determined. However, we can confirm that Australia’s pop princess, Kylie Minogue, will be performing.
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Pride Parade Sydney 2023
Sunday, March 5, will mark the climax of Sydney WorldPride 2023, with a momentous WorldPride March across Sydney Harbor Bridge. The event will welcome LGBTQ+ people walking alongside loved ones and the community across one of the world’s most famous icons. An expected 50,000 people will cross the bridge in a spectacular display of solidarity and pride.
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WorldPride: history in the making
WorldPride is a global celebration that promotes equality and liberty of people from the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Intersex communities. It brings people together globally, with everyone collectively rallying for freedom and equal human rights. The inaugural WorldPride took place in Rome in 2000, and since then, there have been editions of WorldPride Jerusalem 2006, WorldPride London 2012, WorldPride Toronto 2014, WorldPride Madrid 2017, WorldPride New York 2019, and WorldPride Copenhagen 2021.
Along with the official opening ceremony of Sydney WorldPride 2023, there will be a host of other pride-related events and parties that will be akin to what usually happens over the city’s annual Mardi Gras. We’re talking Fair Day at Victoria Park, which will be a rainbow extravaganza transpiring on February 19. Also, the iconic Mardi Gras Parade will color the city streets on February 25 and will welcome over 500,000 pride enthusiasts joining in an LGBTQ+ celebration of floats, dancing, music, and more. For more details on the full program of Sydney WorldPride 2023, be sure to check out the event’s official website.
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Sydney really turns the heat up in February, and as usual for Mardi Gras, the iconic Ivy Hotel will be throwing its annual Paradiso Pool Party. Taking place on the hotel’s rooftop on February 19, the pool party will welcome popular DJs and a host of boys coming out to play in the pool. So grab your best set of speedos, and we’ll see you there.
WorldPride 2023: a city of rainbow
As well as a jam-packed entertainment program, Sydney WorldPride 2023 will keep the pride spirits alive with a series of Pride Villages dotted around the city. For 10 days from February 24, parts of Crown Street and Riley Street will be sectioned off to create pedestrianized, dedicated Pride Villages. Here you can enjoy everything from performances, dining options, and information stalls on relevant LGBTQ+ topics. Over the final weekend of Sydney WorldPride 2023, Oxford Street will also be closed for a once-in-a-lifetime street party. It’s going to be wild, and we can’t wait to dance on the street with Pride.
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As the host city for WorldPride 2023, Sydney will also be decked out in rainbow to celebrate the 17-day extravaganza and honor the global LGBTQ+ community. Organizers across Sydney will be installing free, public artworks across the city, including a 50-meter-long abstract floral rainbow wall composed of 18,000 different colorful plants in the Royal Botanic Garden and a beautiful 27-meter-long rainbow walkway at popular Coogee Beach.
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Flying high with pride: WorldPride Flight
To celebrate Sydney WorldPride 2023, Australia’s national airline, Qantas, will also be scheduling an official WorldPride flight. The flight will take off with pride on February 22 from Los Angeles to Sydney 2023, bringing pride enthusiasts from the American LGBTQ+ community to Australia to celebrate this unique event. Up in the air, passengers can enjoy live entertainment from Australian comedian James Creasley and more, plus limited edition "Rainbow Roo" Qantas pajamas designed specifically for the flight. A ticket for the Pride Flight will also grant you free entry to the Sydney WorldPride Opening Concert.
“Supporting the LGBTQI+ community is part of the Qantas spirit, and this flight will be operated by members of the Qantas Illuminate network, a community of Qantas LGTBQI+ employees and their allies.” - Alan Joyce, CEO of Qantas.
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WorldPride 2023: stay in Sydney
As Australia’s most LGBTQ+ friendly city, it comes as no surprise that Sydney is brimming with fantastic LGBTQ+ accommodation. Through misterb&b, search everything from downtown homes with local LGBTQ+ hosts to entire places, apartments, and great gay-friendly hotels. Book now to avoid missing out on gorgeous LGBTQ+ accommodation and celebrate your pride in HD next February at the much-anticipated Sydney WorldPride 2023. After all, half the fun of going on holiday is to have somewhere fabulous to stay, so find the perfect spot today and enjoy WorldPride 2023 with us.
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WorldPride is more than a party; it is a political celebration that honors pride in every shape and form. It encourages everyone to pay tribute to those who came before us during the Stonewall Riots of 1969 in New York who fought for the rights we can enjoy today. By embracing every shade of the pride rainbow and approaching life beyond the confines of black and white, you too can experience a more welcoming world and enjoy your pride at WorldPride 2023 - just as every other day.
Still not convinced? Check out our 10 Reasons to Go to Sydney WorldPride 2023 now, and you will be!
A history of WorldPride
The WorldPride is a worldwide event by InterPride, the international association of gay pride coordinators, held every few years in a different city in the world. InterPride selects the host cities at its annual general meeting. The event internationally promotes lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer issues through parades, festivals, and other cultural activities.
The inaugural WorldPride was held in Rome in the year 2000. Here is the complete list of the past WorldPride editions:
2000 Rome, Italy
The WorldPride title was awarded for the first time to the city of Rome, Italy, from July 1 to July 9, 2000. The event faced ferocious opposition from the Vatican, Pope John Paul II, and conservative politicians. Despite the turmoil, 250,000 marched to the Colosseum and the Circus Maximus, one of the biggest crowds to gather in Rome for decades. The scheduled events included conferences, a fashion show, a large parade, a leather dance, and a concert featuring Gloria Gaynor, The Village People, RuPaul, and Geri Halliwell.
2006 Jerusalem, Israel
The Jerusalem Open House, the city’s gay community center, won the bid to host WorldPride 2005 in the Holy City. It was postponed until 2006 because of tensions arising from Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. It was called Love Without Borders. The city of Tel Aviv canceled its own annual Pride Weekend to make sure that more Israelis attended the main march. The main parade was initially scheduled for August 6 but was vehemently opposed by Israeli religious leaders. Due to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict, the march was canceled and held on November 10 of the same year.
2012 London, UK
Pride London won the bid to host WorldPride 2012 in the English capital, ahead of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games and during the year-long celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II’s Diamond Jubilee. Initially planned as a spectacular event, London’s WorldPride was significantly scaled back nine days before the event occurred because of financial issues. Activist Peter Tatchell famously said: “It now looks like WorldPride in London will go down in history as a damp squib.”
2014 Toronto, Canada
Pride Toronto, in partnership with the city’s tourism agency, Tourism Toronto, won the bid to host WorldPride 2014 for the first time in North America. The event’s slogan was Rise Up. The opening ceremony featured concert performances by Melissa Etheridge, Deborah Cox, Steve Grand, and Tom Robinson. Three marches occurred over the last three days of the ten-day celebration: the Trans march, the Dyke march, and the WorldPride Parade. All three demonstrations were the longest of their kind in Canadian history. The parade lasted over five hours, marking it as one of the longest parades in Toronto’s history.
2017 Madrid, Spain
Madrid Pride and the city of Madrid, Spain, won the bid to host WorldPride 2017, which marked Spain's 40th anniversary of its first Pride Parade in 1977, during the dictatorship. Over 40 years, gays, lesbians, bisexuals, and transgender individuals managed to make Chueca one of Madrid’s areas with the greatest freedom, tolerance, and diversity. At the same time, “Madrid Orgullo” became one of the most significant gay events in the world. The 2017 WorldPride in Madrid was one of the largest Pride parades in the world, with nearly 3,500,000 attendees. misterb&b was proud to participate with our own special float.
2019 New York City, USA
Of course, New York won the bid for WorldPride 2019. Commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, the Pride movement was returning to its roots. New York and the world celebrated the largest international Pride celebration in history: Stonewall 50 – WorldPride NYC 2019, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Stonewall uprising of June 28, 1969, which occurred in New York City’s Greenwich Village neighborhood and is widely considered to mark the start of the modern Gay Rights Movement, Five million spectators attended in Manhattan for Pride weekend alone.
2021 Copenhagen, Denmark & Malmö, Sweden
Copenhagen and Malmö won the bid to co-host WorldPride 2021 with the EuroGames. Despite the continuing effects of the global COVID-19 pandemic, online and Covid-safe events were held in August 2021, with over 1,000 events spanning sports, culture, human rights, and Pride.
2023 Sydney, Australia
See above
2025 Taiwan
In 2021, Taiwan won the bid to host WorldPride 2025. In August 2022, the Taiwan Preparation Committee withdrew from hosting the global LGBTQ+ event as InterPride insisted on changing the event title from WorldPride Taiwan 2025 to WorldPride Kaohsiung 2025. Some believe that the name controversy was politically motivated, with the ulterior motive of not antagonizing China. Taiwan was the first in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage in 2019 and annually hosts the largest Pride Parade in Asia.
2026 TBD
The next edition is planned for 2026, with Orlando (USA) and Amsterdam as the first potential host cities to have sent official expressions of interest to host WorldPride 2026.
©Cover Image: Facebook/Cassandra Hannagen + Facebook/Sydney WorldPride
