JOBURG PRIDE CELEBRATES 21ST BIRTHDAY IN STYLE
Africa’s first and largest LGBT Pride celebration, which took place at Zoo Lake Sports Club in Johannesburg, saw a record estimated 18,000 people turning out on Saturday to show that “We Are All African” in our sexual and gender diversity.
“We’re extremely happy with Saturday’s event,” said Joburg Pride Co-Chair Tanya Harford. “We believe that we delivered on our mandate to put on an event that serves the LGBT community, and that carries our message out to the media and public. Without all the people that took part, we don’t have a voice,” she said.
Kicking off at 10am, the festive Pride parade wound its way through the streets of Rosebank. The colourful procession – featuring marchers, floats and open top buses – brought traffic to a standstill as people lined the streets to watch the celebration.
The event, which received considerable media exposure, was held under the theme of “We Are All African” to highlight the deteriorating human rights landscape for LGBT people across Africa.
“The ‘We Are All African’ theme is a call for LGBT Africans to affirm and assert their African-ness. Sexual diversity is a normal aspect of the human spectrum and we want this to be accepted on the continent as part of its rich tapestry of cultural, religious, ethnic and linguistic diversity,” said Joburg Pride Co-Chair Zak Mbhele.
Following the parade’s return to Zoo Lake Sports Club, the celebrations continued until 6pm with live entertainment, featuring various local performers, deejays and drag shows. A highlight was a powerful sneak performance by award winning British pop-star Sonique, who later headlined the Official Joburg Pride After-party that night at the Standard Bank Arena.
Aside from the entertainment at Zoo Lake Sports Club, the daytime event also featured numerous stalls, bars, food stands, a kiddies’ play area and LGBT community organisations. OUT and Health4Men hosted their Pride Village and offered HIV testing, counselling and advice.
Joburg Pride Co-Chair Tanya Harford thanked the thousands who came out to celebrate Joburg Pride 2010, as well as the event’s sponsors and supporters: “We would like to thank DGB, SAB, ABI, OUT, Health4Men, 94.7, the Multi-Agency Grants Initiative, MJ Event Gear and Zoo Lake Sports Club. We’re also very grateful for the assistance of the Joburg Metro Police, the South African Police Service and Think Bike who marshalled the event.”
The Good, The Bad and The Ugly. Guys,
it seems Pride went off pretty well – and the attendence was quite amazing. When we came to Zoo Lake, it seemed from an operations perspective, all was done very well – so well done to the organisers. It was great.
HOWEVER:
Firemans Ball After Party:
WTF????
Are we EVER going to be in a situation like we see overseas: i am talking here, people, about the Music.
Again and again, we are in extreme excitment of this celebration every year, and once again left hanging by the diabolical state of the music that is presented to us at the night after-parties.
Have you guys NEVER been overseas to international clubs and events? the music is awesome! WTF with the doff doff dofff thump thump industrial clanging of pots that we have to endure.
The music at the Pride party at Zoo Lake was really really good: it was thumping vocal uplifting house! People were jumping in front of the stage. Isnt that what everyone wants?
Instead, at Firemans Ball, at one stage, all 6 of us stopped and looked at each other is disbelief that anyone can actually dance to that crap that is belted out.
We DONT WANT Music like that anymore. Go overseas and see what they do there. Come on. Wake up. Grow up.
Needless to say, the 6 of us (3 had dance-floor stimulus help and 3 of us were sober) left at 2am, since dancing to that crap was impossible. And we saw the dance-floors emptying out at the same time…..
Will these idiotic DJs EVER get this right? Not everyone wants to have a rendition of STOMP at their dance-club.
The banging of dustbins and pots industrial style where you cant even realise that 1 song has actually changed into another, belongs only in a 1300 Corsa, with 19inch wheels and a 400w system that shakes the mirrors out of its sockets.
as for many of us, we party overseas often, in fact we go overseas just to dance at proper clubs, with proper DJs who know how to keep their patrons jumping together with UPLIFTING HOUSE…
will you ever understand this. Will you ever take it from the thumping Corsa in Boksburg, to Ibiza style? ….. probably never.
RIP dance scene in SA
p.s. please can someone let us know what the Sonique party was like … perhaps there was light at the end of the tunnel there…?
sonique. we were at sonique. nearly didnt go cos we heard the area was dangerous but took a chance. venue was great but way too big. if there were thousands of people then it would have been perfect.
music was awesome. same as day time. i saw 1 dj that played in the day too. waited for sonique who was incredible.
party was good but not enough people to make the place thump
vip lounge was a nice surprise. never seen one like that
2500 ppl. Apparently there were 2500 ppl but with such a big venue, it didn’t seem like much although it was a huge crowd for Pride.
Fireman’s Ball is not Joburg Pride. Fireman’s Ball is a private function and not part of Joburg Pride.
RE : Firemans ball is not JHB pride. Yes.. Fireman’s Ball is not JHB Pride, but the fact that it advertised itself as an “Official After Party” venue piggy backing on the Pride event to fill it’s tills and pockets of the organisers, makes it directly connected and associated with the events of the day, LIKE IT OR NOT..
A private function ??? or a commercial club advertising itself to almost any and all to pay to get in.. !!!!
I was with a group of friends and we all agreed that the music played was to say the least, shocking, and we tried all 3 dance floors. At one stage it was so bad on the main dance floor that we actually ran off to get away from that repetitive what felt like going on for ever bang, bang, bang. We were expecting and hoping for some funky uplifting tracks to be played on just one dance floor, understand you wanted to provide 3 different styles. That would have got the crowd and mood jamming, kick ass happy and hands flying, instead of what we saw was a dance floor of clubbers aimlesly dancing away to the dull thump we got dished out with.
The music at last years Firemans Ball which i also went to scored the same as this years for me, a big fat ZERO. So sorry… but the Fireman’s “Fire” barely achieved a “Candle Flame” .
Yes you can tell as many of us as you want that we are just a bunch of “bitter queens”, If thats what i’m labled with in order for me to express my fair opinion and judgement which I benchmark against what i have experienced and enjoyed at other Gay clubs/events in many cities around the world, then so be it. I thought we were now regarded equally as a part of the Global World, or is that only when its convenient to do so !!!!!! You can try and hide the truth from those who might not know any different, but not from those of us that do know better having seen and experinced it 1st hand on our past travels….
There’s a website http://www.chrisgeary.com done by a guy who photographs and videos gay parties and events all over the world… Go take a peek and see for yourself…………
Sonique. You should have been at the Official After Party. Sonique is a brilliant DJ and the sound & lights were amazing. Lots of Throw Your hands Up in the Air like you Just Don’t Care Anthems. Though the evnet could have benefitted from more people
I CONCUR. I couldn’t have said it better myself, The Oracle! I think you’ll find that many, if not most, people completely concur with your views regarding the music __ I know I do!! GIVE US PROPER MUSIC.
define. steve, please will you define what you mean? or do you have a clue? names please, right away – or shut up.
LOL!. What kak and obviously again under a sudo name.
There was 3 dance floors all with a different strategy and music. House was on the main floor. This is not London and in the spirit with Africa pride we had an Urban and Commercial floor.
We closed at 10am so nothing emptied out.
I fear that these comment boxes on mamba has become a trash palace of bitter queens….
Not a laughing matter – this is your market, Event-Man. House on the main floor?
is that what you call it. At one point half the people were standing there not sure how to actaully dance to that crap.
Bitter queens? for what must we be bitter about? we are all 30 somethings with lots of disposable income who want to Party!
We have experienced the ESPs; The Mother Raves; House Parties and and and… and we have experience overseas clubbing from London to New York and rest of Europe.
We want music like we should be getting. We want music like the rest of the dance-world gets.
Why on earth would we be bitter: we just want a place to party – and throw your hands up in the air.
Explain to me why at 2.30 the main ‘house’ dancefloor was emptying out? Come on, you cannot honestly tell me that you think this music is good?
we were also downstairs for a long time listening to Mark Stent bang some more pots and pans… half the guys were standing on the side unable to actually get into this ‘groove’ …
do yourself a favour, and travel a bit more and see what real music is played overseas instead of this industrial crap.
Its actually YOUR loss, because when people like us leave, you start losing at your bars… so face up to the music, wont you…
agenda’s?. you are a repressed dj?
what is all this – overseas nonsense? we are catering for the market here, and from what i see firemans had the best of what is available.
u however, sound like a real asshole! go away pls !
Listen Bitch. I am an event organizer and as part of that we need to know music trend, DJ’s s etc. We take great pride in the work we do and publish these comments under my name.
I say again you publish crap under a false name = sour old queen or a competitor.
Revile yourself if you have any balls
hilarious. Revile Yourself!!! Got to love South African English
Pieter,
believe it or not, im not out to fight you or pull your event down: the venue was good and the extras you put in compared to normal Discotec was good: so we appreciate the lasers, the extra LED lighting and plasma’s etc.
As an event organiser you do a good job.
However: the standard of music is crap. You arent spinning the disks yourself, so stop getting so defensive.
Im neither old, nor sour, nor a queen. Nor am i a competitor although i have been on the client side of doing events for many years, so i know what goes into these events.
we are successful professionals with cash to spend and have a good time. When we leave at 2am because the music is so bad, then its bad for you.
Im not here to fight with you but rather to fight against the bad music that we always get at events. I have spoken to many people regarding music over the last few years and many many agree – this is often why many gay guys dont go out anymore.
You can fight with me as much as you want, but the truth is there.
Why wont i reveal myself? Because hell hath no fury when a queen is scorned. Instead of taking this to heart and perhaps understanding what we are saying, you would rather get ashes and fight.
do you what you need to.
disappointment. it is with sheer disappointment that I write this…
to be honest, my husband, our hags & a few select friends only decided on THURSDAY that we were in fact going to support Pride this year. so, in true gay originality, we came up with ideas for costumes which would correlate with the theme of “We’re All African” (not a difficult theme either). this was followed by individual designs and a marathon “Project Runway” deadline on Friday night to complete said-costumes. after all, isn’t that what 1 of the main factors is about Pride? the theme?! come Saturday, we got to Zoo Lake (alas, we missed the actual march due to our driver been given directions by 5 other Garmin’s in the same car!) but, we did arrive and were left a tad bit gobsmacked by the utter LACK of originality! I mean, the theme was made quite clear, and given that we live in Africa, could have really made an amazing impact! but no, all we saw was a (really impressive) Zebra-twink (matching Zebra nose and all), a few interesting Ostrich Feathers on an Indian Drag Queen and the 6 of us in our Leopard print loin-cloths! serriaas!
that just spoiled the day a bit, coz I don’t understand why people just can’t make an effort anymore. seeing the same gays every year wearing less than the next gay and exposing more, just doesn’t make for “creative” thinking…
maybe it’s just me, but why have a theme at all?
Fabricated. These comment all seem fabricated, Firemans ball was packed! and the music was fantastic!!!!!!
HOW DO I KNOW?
I WAS THERE!
I hear you: so Fireman’s Ball wasnt an official after-party…
do you know when our friends heard that? after we had bought the tickets for Fireman’s. FBall is SO well advertised on 5fm that every DJ from Gareth to Fresh talks about it… naturally you think its going to be a bash of note.
The problems are:
1. When you look at the Pride posters, they dont actually say a proper night-time after party: we thought ‘Sonique at After Party’ meant Sonique was going to be at Zoo Lake. She was: but for 1 x song.
2. The way 5fm was punting their sponsorship on FBall, many people thought this was the official after-party.
3. The guys at ‘The Warehouse’ punted the venue on their brochures that it almost seemed different from Discotec’s ‘new’ venue. I mean, if you see the layout map of the venue, it looked completely different from the actual venue… if i had known it was Discotec venue (the old Nexus) we wouldnt have gone…
3. if these stupid frikken idiotic DJs ACTUALLY played music that people want to hear, then the clubs would be better supported: you always hear that gay guys dont support new clubs etc.. but why is that? are there less gay people? no. Less money? no… so what actually has changed that people dont go to clubs? er…..um…. maybe the music SUCKS so badly that people dont go out.
4. None of our circle of friends saw the Pride After Party info brochure UNTIL the March – which was too late for many as we had already bought tickets… this means it might habe been badly marketed?
5. with competing clubs: Babylon; Discotec masquarading as Firemans; the Sonique after party etc, you going to get this splitter of people in different directions, which means that a potential awesome party like Sonique, just would be well attended in such a large venue… sad
In any case: i stand by my words: SA DJs playing at Gay venues and clubs have NO CLUE.
… myself and our friends could have bought some David Guetta, Ministry of Sound, and Hed Kandi albums and played the music through an iPod system and we would have had better music than at Firemans Ball.
Ask anybody been to Europe for summer holidays now: Mykonos, Madrid, Ibiza etc… the music is wicked… its all the stuff that gets put on albums, that we buy and listen to…
WHY OH FU&%$K WHY, then, MUST WE LISTEN TO POTS BANGING CRAP songs in our gay clubs…
time to retire these ‘gay DJs’…
THE FACTS. I just want to put the facts out there:
1. We offered the Fireman’s Ball to this pride board to combine to make it a money spinner for pride.
– They refused.
2. There was also an offer made to them that all the clubs and events can contribute part of their door charge on pride.
– They refused.
What more are we suppose to do? This board decided to do an “new” thing without trying to involve anybody while all these offers were on the table.
This is a section 21 company that was established by the community and can not operate in a vacuum.
They have never published audited financial statements and took a huge risk with the afterparty while they were sitting with a huge financial loss in 2009.
The result of all this can be good and the community will have pick up the pieces again.
Eish
Pieter
FLOP. What a FLOP gay pride after party was!
We ended up at Firemans ball, dont know why we just didn’t go there in the first place!
Greedier and greedier Pride Board. I am and have always been a huge fan of Joburg Pride. And even though I have sung the praises of the new Pride board, and the fantastic things they have accomplished, I was disappointed this year by how it was done.
Firstly, I understand the fact that they did not want people to take in food and water, although, is water such a huge thing? But when the thousands of marchers came back from an extremely hot walk (and I saw NO waterpoints this year), suddenly every single person had to be searched for water, by 3 or 4 security guys. It was infuriating! I did not even have water or anything, but I was stuck in the stampede of people.
To make things worse, when we almost got to the entrance I saw the asshole security guys being insulting and extremely rude to people. The one guard actually said “Fuck you” to a guy. What the hell? Another one was refusing to let a guy with a water cooler in, even AFTER the guy opened the container and showed him that it is empty. So by the time we got in eventually, everyone was angry and irritated, which spoiled the mood.
Then, after being refused to enter with any fluid, everyone stormed the waterholes, only to find out that you had to have that stupid pink money tokens before you could even BUY water. So the irritation grew more.
Then we saw that the queue for the fucking tokens is snaking over the entire field. What absolute and utter bullshit!!!
Really, if you WANT to control the entrance, thats fine, but get PROFFESIONALS to do it, and enough of them to handle a crowd of a few thousand. Not just 3 or 4 rude assholes. Please spend the money you extort from us next year to pay for this.
And please, please, if you insist on using the stupid tokens please put up points to buy them everywhere, so that not every single person there needs to storm the same place.
The fact that you could not return the tokens shows the greed – not EVERYONE there WANTS to go clubbing afterwards. That and the fact that the master of ceremony implored everyone to “SPEND MONEY” with every announcement he made. GREED! And what is this R5 for a stupid plastic glass? Those glasses are under R1, and at least THAT could have been free, because after we bought drinks for the whole group, we spent R60 more than we thought we would, so we had to go BACK to the stupid tokens queue for the next round.
I do encourage you to be very transparent with how you spend the money for next year that we paid, because to me it looks like some of you are trying to turn this non-profit thing into a secret profit for some, much like the current government.
It is starting to look like you are just USING the gay community, not serving them like you were supposed to do.
Good an Bad. This being my second pride i must say last years pride was better than this years …
This year the bars were inadequately stocked , not everyone drinks black label millers an brutal fruit , If you dont want people bringing in their own drinks be it water or booze stock the bar properly ..
This year was a scotcher there were no adequate shades spots..
The HIV test center was a dismal failure with unhelpfull disorganised staff an councillors .. Two couples been tested in the same booth an results been given at the same time, an these couples total strangers to each other , ..
I left at 2
Went to the the official after party Sonic, absolutelly brilliant, Thought i was back at ministry of sound , sonic had the crowd dancing until the morning !!!!!