All things pink and flamboyant take to the streets

The big event during the festival, the Pride Parade, takes place tomorrow where festival goers parade in their “fabulous” costumes through the streets of Green Point. Every year, the main attraction for the parade, the floats, steal the show as dancing drag queens give spectators a show from their decorated floats.

Festival director, Gareth Dallas, said the festival had all the most celebrated and talented drag queens and other acts to keep crowds entertained for the weekend.

Drag queen Lola Lou, singer Claire Phillips, and talented local jazz singer Nomfusi are some of the entertainers.

The Pride Parade starts at 11am tomorrow from the Cape Town Stadium and returns to the venue for the parade party, which ends at 8pm.

The official after-party will take place

at Crew Bar in Napier Street.

“We are expecting about 4 500 people to take part in the parade and it’s going to be bigger than ever this year, especially with a start from the Diva of Cape Town, the stadium, which took quite a bit of work to get. People can expect to see lots of fabulous and different styles of our community coming out and celebrating the theme ‘Love our Diversity’,” Dallas said.

Today, organisers are hosting a Cheese and Wine fundraiser for the Cape Town Pride Shelter which will be the first shelter in Africa for gay and lesbian people in distress. The shelter will open next month in Oranjezicht.

The festival ends on Sunday with a pride hike on Lion’s Head and a seminar at Zonnebloem College in Woostock.