Sydney WorldPride comes to a buoyantly successful close
The first WorldPride in the Southern Hemisphere wrapped up in Sydney on Sunday evening with an open-air closing concert and dance party headlined by singers Kim Petras and Ava Max.
The packed extravaganza rounded out a 17-day celebration of more than 300 events — encompassing parties, parades, exhibitions, workshops, sports, a film festival, competitive voguing and much more — that in all were projected to be attended by some half a million people.
Earlier on Sunday, 50,000 marchers, including Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, took part in an early morning march across the city’s cherished Sydney Harbor Bridge, which was closed to traffic for the first time since 2000 to make way for the walk. “It was important for me to come to the march because I’m a black trans woman, so I felt like I should march in solidarity with the community,” said Taj Tian, an American expat who recently relocated from Tokyo to Sydney. “We came to WorldPride because it was important to deliver our message from Korea to the world,” said Seunguk So, who carried a banner with his husband, Yong Min Kim, in support of marriage equality in South Korea.
Timed to coincide with Australia’s summer and Sydney’s iconic Mardi Gras celebration, the WorldPride calendar began on Feb. 17 with a series of queer parties and performances, then kicked into overdrive with a Feb.
