Pride Week (Toronto)
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Pride Week is an event held in Toronto, Ontario during the last week of June each year. It is a celebration of the diversity of the LGBT community in the Greater Toronto Area. It is the one of the largest organized Gay Pride festivals in the world, featuring several stages with live performers and DJs, several licensed venues, a large Dyke March, and the Pride Parade. The epicentre of Pride Week is the city's Church and Wellesley village, and both the Dyke March and the main Pride Parade are primarily routed along the nearby Yonge Street.
Pride Week is organized by Pride Toronto, a non-profit volunteer organization. A small number of staff support 20-30 volunteer committee coordinators, each responsible for an aspect of the festival or of the organisation's year-round activities.
Main events of Pride Week include the Dyke March and the Pride parade, the latter having some 400,000 in attendance in 2004.
Toronto's Pride Week evolved out of the mass protests that followed the 1981 Toronto bathhouse raids, and celebrated its 25th anniversary in 2005. In the 2005 parade, newly appointed Toronto police chief Bill Blair became the first chief of police in the city's history to personally take part in the parade.
In 2006, Pride Week was held from June 19 to June 25. The 2006 theme for Pride Week was "Fearless". The next Pride Week is going to take place from June 15 to June 24, 2007. The theme is "Unstoppable!".
Other large Pride events include Montreal's Divers/Cité, San Francisco, California's Pride event, and Parada do Orgulho GLBT de São Paulo.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Pride Toronto (official site)
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