The Largest LGBT+ Event in the World! Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is both the world’s largest LGBT+ event and one of Australia’s most famous and well-loved events. From February 16th – March 4th 2018 hundreds of thousands of people from around Australia and overseas celebrated “40 Years of Love”, as the first march took place on Saturday 24th June 1978. There are a variety of events to enjoy, like the Sydney Mardi Gras Parade and Party, Bondi Beach Drag Races, Harbour Party, the academic discussion panel Queer Thinking, Mardi Gras Film Festival, and Fair Day, which over 70,000 people attend in Victoria Park, Sydney. This is also New South Wales’ second-largest annual event in terms of economic impact, which generates an annual income of about A$30 million for the state each year.

  This year’s Mardi Gras celebrated “40 Years of Love” with a huge inflatable art installation, which will take pride of place at Taylor Square. The creators describe the installation as “big, bold and sassy artwork based on concepts of public protest, joyous celebration, community activation and engagement”. It was announced as the winner of the Taylor Square Public Art Project today by Lord Mayor Clover Moore.

Mardi Gras does retain a political flavour from its beginnings, with many marching groups and floats promoting LGBT+  rights issues or themes. The annual event comes from humble beginnings of only 300 marchers, protesting attempts to stop gay rights supporters and  the Australian visit of homophobic Festival of Light campaigner Mary Whitehouse. During the march and in the months following, more protests and arrests took place– but less than a year later, in April 1979, the Parliament of New South Wales repealed the NSW Summary Offences Act legislation that had allowed the arrests to be made and created a new Public Assemblies Act. This was a  major civil rights milestone beyond the gay community, and thus the 2nd (now annual) Mardi Gras in 1979 had approx 3,000 people in attendance and grew to the hundreds of thousands in the 2018 event. Today the parade includes groups of uniformed Australian Defence Force personnel, police officers from New South Wales State Police, as well as interstate and federal police officers, firefighters and other emergency services personnel from the Australian LGBT+ communities. You can read the full history here.

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