Covid-19: New date confirmed for Auckland Rainbow Pride Parade

Thursday, 18 February 2021

The Rainbow Pride Parade was originally scheduled to take place in Ponsonby Rd in Auckland on Saturday February 20.

The Auckland Rainbow Pride Parade has moved to a new date after the region’s alert level 3 lockdown caused it to be postponed.

The parade will now take place in Ponsonby Rd on March 13 at 6pm and will be followed by the Ponsonby street festival at 7pm.

Market stalls and pop-up shops will be in the area from 11am, before the over 1000 participants in the parade will move on foot along with unmotorised floats from Tole St down Ponsonby Rd to Williamson Ave.

After the parade there will be a carnival-style performance from Brazilian dancers and drag queen performers to kick off the street festival.

* Rainbow Pride Auckland Parade returns to Ponsonby for second year running

* Uniformed police will walk in Rainbow Pride Auckland parade

The parade became mired in controversy when police were banned from marching in uniform. (Video first published in Jan 2019)

A number of corporate organisations will be walking in the parade, including Tower Insurance, Countdown, ZM, KiwiRail, Fire and Emergency New Zealand, and members of the police force.

Several high-profile sports organisations are also planning to take part in the parade in a move to make sport more inclusive.

Event manager for Rainbow Pride Shaughan Woodcock said he was “delighted” a new date for the parade had been found so quickly.

The parade was originally scheduled to go ahead on February 20 but when it was announced on Sunday that Auckland would be moving into alert level 3, Woodcock said the decision was made to postpone.

“I actually found it to be a really emotional time announcing that it would not be going ahead as originally planned,” Woodcock said.

At the time, Woodcock said event organisers had taken the health and safety of everyone into account in making the decision to postpone.

“The last thing we want to do is put on a Pride parade where our rainbow whānau and allies are put at risk.”

In 2020, the first reincarnation of the parade was held in a walking format, with more than 10,000 people attending.