The Auckland Pride Festival Starts Today!

LGBTQ+ folx are converging on Auckland, New Zealand this month for the Auckland Pride Festival and a month full of non-stop queer events!

The 2024 line-up for the annual festival will feature more than 20 works from over 60 artists, and a roster of major events such as Loud & Proud, the Pride Party, the curated arts program Pride Elevates, and Te Tīmatanga: Auckland Pride Festival Opening, which is scheduled for today (February 1). Remember New Zealand is 18 hours ahead of Americans who live on the East Coast of the U.S.

“This festival is a love letter to the Queer Māma’s that have come before us. This year we have been inspired to create spaces for collective dreaming, healing, and nourishment. The 2024 festival is shaped by the theme of Ki Tua/Beyond Paradise, inviting us into spaces where we can dream of what has come chronologically before, and what lies metaphysically beyond,” said Julia Croft, co-director of Auckland Pride. “We hope these events offer us all space to come together and imagine new and better worlds, and new ways of being together, whether on a dance floor, in a march, on the stage, or in a gallery. Let’s do this together.” 

Auckland Pride 2024 opens with Te Tīmatanga on Thursday, February 1 at the Civic Wintergarden. Revelers can expect a lush, burlesque-inspired evening of performances featuring Rosana Raymond and The Pacific Sisters, Kiriana Sheree (2023 Pride Artist in Residence), Pounamu Rurawhe (2024 Pride Artist in Residence), and live music by the award-winning South Auckland based rock and hip-hop group, Valkyrie.

Loud and Proud will showcase a hand-picked selection of Auckland’s best experimental, underground, and “out-there” LGBTQIA+ musicians and recording artists – who identify across the spectrums of gender, sexuality, and genre. See them all at Pitt Street Church, The Audio Foundation, and Whammy Bar located along Karangahape Road. 

In 2024, the Pride Party heads to Takutai Square at Britomart where there’s a space for everyone. Brady Peeti will host the event along with Takatuwops, Petmal Lam Petelo, and Spencer Papali’i. Auckland’s most exciting emerging performers, PATI AF along with a full band will headline Pride Party. Some of Tāmaki’s favorite DJs such as DJ Brown Boy Magik, DJ Vercetti, and DJ Blush.mp3 will be performing, too! 

First Trimester invites audiences to witness intimate live interviews between volunteers and the artist, Krishna Istha, in their quest to find them and their partner the ‘perfect’ sperm donor. This ground-breaking performance offers a rare opportunity to contribute to and witness queer family-making. First Trimester explores human connection and parenthood, challenging expectations, and redefining what it means to create a family as a transgender person.  This work is direct from the UK, having recently premiered at Battersea Arts Centre.

Deepen* is a new curatorial program presented by The D*List and Auckland Pride. Deepen* focuses on queer, disabled artists and their artistry. Deepen* will include digital poetry and activations led by these artists to imagine what a carefully considered, “luxurious” space might look like and reveling in it.

As part of Pride Elevates, The Bloom is an innovative new dance work by Jessie McCall in collaboration with multi-media company Ready Steady which leans into the generative glitches of queer propagation and motherhood. The Perfect Image is a new queer rom-com by award-winning playwright Sam Brooks (Riding in Cars with (Mostly Straight) Boys and Burn Her). It highlights the politics of passing, queerness, and what it’s like to fall for someone you really shouldn’t. 

Returning for Auckland Pride 2024 are the Pride March, Pride Party, the Big Gay Out, Same Same But Different literary festival, along with Pride Elevates, which includes the return of The Legacy Project; Te Tīmatanga, and Open Access programming.

Auckland Pride is committed to ensuring that Tāmaki Makaurau’s Takātapui and Rainbow communities are not just surviving but thriving and that Pride reflects the very best of rainbow Aotearoa. 

For information on all Auckland Pride Festival events, performances, and workshops, and to purchase tickets, visit www.aucklandpride.org.nz.