tāhuhu kōrero / history
“Come out now. Be visible, tell everyone you can. Be blatant.
Be as gay and as lesbian as you can all of the time.”
— Bigot Busters rally, Wellington Town Hall, May 1985
Wellington Pride Festival traces its history back to the first Newtown Lesbian and Gay Fair in 1986, organised as part of the campaign for the Homosexual Law Reform Bill which passed on July 9th, 1986.
Since then, the capital has been home to an array of rainbow festivals and other events which have celebrated, represented, and supported the LGBTQIA+ community in Te Whanganui-a-Tara and beyond.
1986 - 2007
Wellington’s first Lesbian and Gay Fair was held at Newtown School in 1986, themed ‘A Fair for a Fair Law’. It was created as part of the community-led advocacy mahi during the Homosexual Law Reform campaign.
The Fair became an annual event in Wellington’s calendar, driven by Des Smith and John Jolliff for many years, until they passed on the baton to a group of community members in the mid-2000s.
1991 - 1998
The first Devotion dance party was held in December 1991 (organised by Peter Beardsley at NZAF) at the Overseas Passenger Terminal (now apartments). It soon grew to include a community-led festival, a magazine and street parade organised by a community committee, Sprung! Productions. The party went on to attract thousands and was often headlined by Wellington superstar DJ Clinton Smiley, aka Jason Harding.
2008 - 2014
In 2008, the group of community members who took over organising Wellington’s annual LGBTQIA+ fair relocated the event to Civic Square and renamed it Out in the Square, to create more visibility for our communities in the centre of the city.
Over the next six years, Out in the Square drew thousands of people to Civic Square annually, celebrating and supporting rainbow communities.
2015
Thanks to Wellington’s infamous windy weather, Out in the Square was postponed in 2015.
Instead, Wellington Pride Festival held Out in the Carpark, as part of CubaDupa in late March. It was preceded by the Love Parade which marched from Civic Square through the CubaDupa crowds, to the Fair on Ghuznee Street.
2016
In 2016, Out in the Square moved to Waitangi Park and was renamed Out in the Park. The community-led parade/hīkoi walked from Frank Kitts Park along the waterfront, to be welcomed onto Waitangi Park by Tīwhanawhana.
The event marked the 30th anniversary of the first rainbow fair in Wellington, originally called the Lesbian and Gay Fair.
2017
After two decades, the community-led parade marched along the inner-city streets of Wellington in 2017.
Out in the Park was attended by dozens of rainbow groups, rainbow MPs Louisa Wall, Jan Logie, and Grant Robertson, and thousands of festival-goers.
2018
Wellington Pride Festival created their own community-led march, now called the Pride Hīkoi – prioritising the safety and representation of families, youth and QBBIPOC. It also adopted the route it has taken since, marching from Civic Square to Waitangi Park for the opening of Out in the Park.
Wellington International Pride Parade (WIPP) formed as an independent organisation and began running an annual tourism-based Pride parade down Courtenay Place.
2020
After one of Wellington Pride’s most successful festivals to date (with a record-breaking 100+ events across two weeks!) the queer community of Wellington and beyond banded together to support each other online during the global outbreak of COVID-19.
LGBTQIA+ performers took themselves from stage to screen with events like Slay Healthy - an online digital drag show which raised an incredible $10,450 for queer artists suffering from loss of events, venues and sources of income.
If you would like to read more about rainbow history in Aotearoa, these links are a good place to start:
Queer History (National Library)
Pride.nz (Media archives)
LAGANZ (Lesbian & Gay Archives NZ)