Montreal’s streets were turned into a massive party earlier today, as the city celebrated Pride 2019. It’s annual celebration of the LGBTQ community. And what a fantastic time it was. For the people on the floats and proudly flaunting themselves in the parade – to the masses that had gathered to bare witness.
The Montreal Pride 2019 Festival — better known as Fierté Montréal — is expected to draw more than two million people over ten days, from Aug. 8 to 18. It is now the largest Pride in the francophone world. An honor which the citizens of Montreal take to heart. Fierte Montreal will be using this years festivities for its campaign to have Montreal considered as host of WorldPride 2023.
The week long festivities conclude each year with this parade. But the festival itself began ten days ago, and featured some extraordinary performances at Parc des Faubourgs. Yesterday saw comedy legend and queer icon Margaret Cho. The night prior to that, pop star Ciara held a fantastic concert in the park. The much-anticipated annual Drag Superstars concert took place before that. Hosted by the ravishingly gorgeous Sasha Velour.
See also : Montreal Pride parade 2016
Velour was the winner of the ninth season of RuPaul’s Drag Race. Drag Superstars, a three hour spectacle and sublime showing, was again the highlight of ten day long festival. Featuring the likes of RuPaul’s Drag Race alumni A’keria Chanel Davenport, Detox, Willam, Trinity the Tuck, Silky Nutmeg Ganache, Latrice Royale, Manila Luzon, Naomi Smalls, Vanessa Vanjie Mateo, Yvie Oddly and Canada’s Brooke Lynn Hytes. Drag Superstars was an absolute blast!
All this and so much more. It is little wonder that people travel from all over the world to attend these festivities. That, and the overall joie de vivre that is Montreal at its cultural core, help create the perfect holiday destination.
Montreal’s Rene-Levesque boulevard was completely filled on both sides. People from all walks of life gathered. Held hands and waved flags. The young and the old. Gay, straight and otherwise. It was a beautiful display of humanity and an overall feeling of love filled in the air. From roughly two hours, float after float drifted along the boulevard. Participants danced, and sang their way along the trajectory. There were those that wore costumes and those that wore very little. Many chose to use this platform to send a message – holding signs and placards proudly above their heads.
As the parade passed them by, people left their sidewalk perches and joined in with the march. Blowing whistles and dancing along to the infectious beats. Pride 2019, like all other Pride\s before it. was a raucous party.And party is what everybody in attendance had come to do. And celebrate their diversities and their community. It was truly wonderful.
Pride stems from the Stonewall riots. A series of spontaneous, violent demonstrations by members of the gay community. Against a police raid that began in the early morning hours of June 28, 1969, at the Stonewall Inn in the Greenwich Village neighborhood of Manhattan, New York City. The following year, the first Pride parade took place. Now, Pride is celebrated throughout the world – of course, nobody does it better than Montreal does.
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