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Kelowna Pride Week starts tomorrow. It's taken a lot of planning and adaptation, but organizers have found a way to celebrate with real, in-person events.
"It's been interesting," said Okanagan Pride President Dustyn Baulkham, "We've had to change the structure of our events probably four or five times already for the past two months just because obviously COVID changes and provincial guidelines change, so we're constantly evolving."
Baulkham said they remain ready for anything even on the eve of Pride Week. "Who knows," he chuckles, "they might shock us with another order next week and we have to adjust again."
Events will have limited attendance and people have to preregister. They include a Drag Superstar competition that takes place over a span of 3 different nights, parades on bicycles, in cars and on the water and a limited attendance pride festival gathering.
For those who can't attend, there are plans to live-stream the events for everyone.
"We're not going to publicly announce the location of our drag competition next weekend or our festival," he explained, "because we don't want a bunch of people just showing up thinking they can get in."
Kelowna Pride is out of step with most communities where festivals are being shared on-line without physical gatherings for people to attend.
"Most prides have done all pre-recorded and then its shown as if it's live but it's not really live," he explained, "so it loses some of that element. We've really tried to create it so that if you're watching it on-line it feels as close as possible to being there in person."
Baulkham admits, that nothing will quite compare with seeing thousands crowding into Stuart Park to celebrate as they did last year, Pride Kelowna is determined to prove that they can host a memorable event, even in a pandemic.
"The arts and entertainment industry is just getting punished severely by our provincial government, they keep clawing things back and I think we also need to show that we can safely have small events,"
For a complete list of events and to register, click here.
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