2020-06-04 • Halifax • Wayves Staff
On Thursday evening, Halifax Pride hosted a Zoom conference to give an update to event organizers and the community at large. Here are the highlights:
The Halifax Pride Festival is not cancelled, and the dates remain the same as announced earlier this year. There'll be 11 days of advocacy and celebration from July 16th to the 26th. The Parade itself, however, is cancelled. There'll be a theme announced.
"This festival has the ability to bring people together in a way we need right now. Let's make this festival one to remember!" said Adam Reid, Festival director.
As in previous years, there'll be many events. There will be an evening show series, a: mix of pre-taped and live: musicians, drag, comedy and more. Halifax Pride is working with ideas such as a morning meditation, a public health session, spiritual, mental, physical, at 10:00am every day. There'll be a daily noon hour panel series.
Along with the online events, there will be appropriately social distanced outdoor events: yoga, pilates, picnic and active living activities such as bike rides, runs, aerobics, on weekday evenings. Other outdoor activities may include socially distant yoga, kite flying, picnics etc. We'll do a flag raising but it won't be a big public event.
The event calendar will be online at halifaxpride.com; there won't be a print one.
All of the physically present events will fit a safety plan which we'll be sharing as it develops; public health recommendations will be changing and we'll be changing our guidelines with it.
Halifax Pride supports Black Lives Matter. We have a couple of teams discussing how we can best recognize this in a respectful way.
There was a wealth of information for event organizers: the deadline for video submissions will be in early July. There'll be training and technical support available for anyone who wants to submit a video or host an online event.
Event organizers will be getting various kinds of support as in previous years; details are on the Pride website. Having an online calendar means that there won't be a hard deadline for the calendar, but you should still get your event onto the calendar early.
Here are some of the deadlines for event organizers:
* June 22: The online calendar will open for you to submit your events.
* There is an Emergency Events Support Program which will provide up to $300 to help you create and run your event. There'll be a simple form for this; the deadline will be June 24.
* On June 9, the call for volunteers will be sent out.
* The deadline for sponsors will close near the end of the month.
For any questions or comments, go to halifaxpride.com --> About --> Contact.
