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2013 Pride Programme Is Coming Out!

With registrations well underway, the 2013 Auckland Pride Festival programme is set to light up the camp with over 50 fabulous events, both international and local. The colourful celebration of Rainbow Community arts, culture and identity spans two weeks and three weekends next February 8-24.

Painting the super city all colours of the prism, the 2013 festival programme features signature events including the Auckland Pride Parade on Ponsonby Road, Get it On! Big Gay Out in Coyle Park, Bear New Zealand Week, Heroic Gardens Festival and The Auckland Pride Gala at Q Theatre – as well as local and international cabaret, comedy, theatre, visual arts, concerts, record releases, book launches, debates, discussions, historical walks, charity events, sporting events, lifestyle events – and not to mention all the fantastic parties!

Set to be the major highlight of the Festival with over 40 float entries so far is The Auckland Pride Parade 2013 which takes place on Saturday 16 February on Ponsonby Road. Expect explosions of colour, flashing sequins, outrageously over the top drag queens, hot toned bodies, wild dancing, and fantastic music – all performed on a stage over 1.5kms long!

Other Auckland Pride Festival 2013 highlights include:

The Auckland Pride Gala will officially open the festival on Friday 8 February at Queen Street’s fabulous Q Theatre. Let your taste-buds be tickled by performances from festival events at this best-of-the-fest black tie occasion, showcasing many of the festival’s most talented entertainers, musicians and artists.

Gobsmacked: Showbiz & Dating from Melbourne, Australia at the Musgrove Theatre. Joined by her BGBF (best_gay_boyfriend), Jamie Burgess, Nikki Aitken bares her single girl's soul in a musical-theatre-meets-cabaret showcase of spilt chocolate, spirit-fingers and spoilt divas. Featuring all-original music, Nikki and Jamie together commiserate and celebrate the fabulous-darling single life!

The original Māori cross-cultural gender-bender is back on the K’ Road strip with Salon Mika, a sexy cabaret showcase that embraces everything from haka to vogue, burlesque to drag, soul to punk. Be sure to see Auckland’s most beautiful boys, girls and in-betweens in the wild and free performance mélange that could only be Salon Mika.

Hailing all the way from the Mother Land, celebrated British biographer and performer Rose Collis unbuttons her critically-acclaimed Trouser-Wearing Characters show (Brighton Fringe Festival 2012) at TAPAC for a limited season. This unique show mixes music, history and performance engaging us with Rose’s favourite cross-dressing, bygone characters from 50’s media star Nancy Spain to a masquerader ‘Colonel’ Victor Barker, cabaret legend Douglas Byng, to the ‘F***ing Lady’ herself, actress Coral Browne.

In the style of Toa Fraser's 'Bare', Victor Rodger (My Name is Gary Cooper) brings us Black Faggot; a series of humorous monologues exploring the gay Samoan male experience, from a camp closeted member of Destiny Church to a butch Hamo homo with plenty of swag and everything in between.

The last weekend of the festival is must-see event on many gardeners’ calendars, the Heroic Gardens tour which gives attendees exclusive access to some of Auckland City’s most prestigious private gardens. Showcasing gay and lesbian-owned gardens, the festival has grown to include the gardens of many other supporters of Hospice as well.

The majority of Auckland Pride Festival activity centres on Ponsonby and Karangahape Roads, with festival events reaching out to Henderson in the west, Mt Wellington in the south, and right into the Hauraki Gulf.

FULL PROGRAMME TO BE RELEASED MID JANUARY

Auckland Pride Festival 2013 runs from 8-24 February 2013 | for more information head to www.aucklandpridefestival.org.nz or www.facebook.com/AkldPrideFest

ENDS

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