Vancouver, August 4, 2010

Now that Vancouver has just celebrated another exciting Pride season, many of us can get back to our regular schedules and routines, including updating our blogs.

That said, Vancouver Pride this year was bigger and better than ever, with an amazing line-up of events, parties, cruises, and just a lot of fun for all. Some highlights for us included the Davie Street Party on Friday night, the Celebration of Light and a bar tour on Saturday evening, the Pride Parade Sunday at noon and the CruiseyT GoGo Cruise Sunday evening, followed by yet another bar tour! It was great to see many of our long-time friends out and about, many of whom we only see out at this time of year, and also lots of folks from out of town visiting for the celebrations.

It is an incredible high-energy weekend here in the city, with close to a half million people coming into the West End Saturday evening for the fireworks, a large percentage marching right through Davie Village enroute to the beaches of English Bay, followed by an estimated 600,000 just 12 hours or so later, to line the streets to watch the Pride Parade. If people watching is your thing, it just doesn't get much better than this! Add in the fact that there are relatively few problems overall, and it is a pretty amazing spectacle for everyone to see on this scale.

It was also great to see the many families, kids, and people of all walks of life out to cheer on the parade, waving rainbow flags and cheering on the participants. The importance of this was highlighted by one of our Grand Marshalls this year, Nicolai Alexseev from Moscow, who is currently fighting for the right to stage similar celebrations back home. We have come a very long way since our very first Vancouver Pride Festival back in 1973.

And as we wrap up Pride here in Vancouver, our friends in the Thompson Okanagan region are just gearing up for their celebrations, August 11-15, and have a full line-up of events in the works. Our contest for a Grand Prize Package for Okanagan Pride is now closed, and we will be announcing the winner in the days ahead. Check out the details for Okanangan Pride via the links on our Thompson Okanagan page:   http://www.gayvan.com/travel/okanagan.html .

Back in the city, we are now getting ready for the 22 Annual Queer Film Festival, August 12-22, which is another great reason to visit Vancouver. Grab yourself a great hotel room, a film festival pass, and take a trip around the world with 90 films from a dozen countries, over an eleven day run. We're also offering a chance to win two tickets to The Butch Factor on August 15, and you can enter from the Newsletter box on our homepage: http://www.gayvan.com/ .

Cheers!