Excitement builds for parade despite its move away from Oxford Street

The venue’s capacity has been capped at 75 per cent, with about 33,000 people expected to attend – compared to the crowds of more than 300,000 people who watched last year’s Mardi Gras parade, held shortly before the COVID-19 lockdown in March.

Also marching will be members of the BiCONIC bisexual support group, whose costumes are inspired by characters from a Lady Gaga music video, who is an icon for bisexual people, according to spokeswoman Bree Mountain.

“Despite the move from Oxford Street, we’re excited to get back together after what has been a challenging year,” Mountain said. “We know our community gains so much from being together.”

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The First Nations parade entry features 40 Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBT mob from across the state, predominantly dressed in black leather in response to Black Lives Matter and the black panther movement.

“It’s a great diverse mix of all members of our rainbow and we’re really excited to showcase how beautiful, Blak and deadly everyone is,” she said.

Organiser Jane Strang said the parade entry was designed to highlight the 434 deaths of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people in custody and not one conviction since the 1991 Royal Commission.

“That’s what we’re trying to draw attention to,” she said. “And also around our brother boys, sistagirls and our trans mob.”

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Strang said “some of the essence” of Mardi Gras had been lost by moving the parade from Oxford Street to the SCG and creating a ticketed event with corporate sponsorship.

“It’s moving a little too far away from where it began, as a riot and protest against all the injustices we face as queer people,” she said.

“As First Nations peoples, we face so many injustices on our own land as well as our facing discrimination based on our sexuality and gender.”

The Transpride entry ‘Live It Up’ will feature 32 participants dressed in pink, white and blue – the colours of the trans flag – performing a routine to Eighties pop song The Only Way Is Up.

AJ Brown, president of Transpride Australia, said the entry was about self-empowerment and giving visibility to a group of people marginalised within the LGBTIQ+ community.

“Our Trans and gender diverse history has been there all along,” Brown said. “Unfortunately it has not been as strongly represented as other letters of the rainbow.”

Brown said the participants were “all my kin” who come together once a year at Mardi Gras for an enormous “family celebration.

Brown said they were initially hesitant about using the SCG, which they called a “white, colonial, male building”, as the venue for Mardi Gras, but the venue had upped its game by making its bathrooms genderless.