Since 2014, Stichting Pride Amsterdam has successfully organised the annual Pride in Amsterdam. Stichting Pride Amsterdam is the hub connecting organisations and companies that collaborate to make the festival happen. The festival is shaped by the following committees: Horeca, Boat Parade, Pride Walk, Art & Culture, Sport Pride, Women & Pride, Youth Pride, Senior Pride, Trans Pride, Religion Pride, Fetish Pride and Corporate Pride. The committees work to create programmes tailored to their audiences and to increase visibility for those same groups.
Stichting Pride Amsterdam is a non-profit organisation that strives for emancipation, social, civic and legal equality and acceptance of gay, bisexual and lesbian people and also for those who cannot or do not wish to conform to dominant societal gender roles (such as male women, female men and queers) or for whom the sex they were assigned at birth does not match how they feel (such as transgender people). Visibility of diversity is essential to achieve that.What you see can’t be ignored.
Pride Amsterdam is more than just an event. It symbolises the open and tolerant city we aim to be. We celebrate the freedom to be yourself. For twenty years the Boat Parade has been inseparably linked with Amsterdam and is now an indispensable part of our city centre.
Eberhard van der Laan
Former Mayor of Amsterdam
With these words the late mayor Eberhard van der Laan repeatedly expressed how important Pride was to his city. And it matters not only for the capital, but also for the reputation of liberal Netherlands in general.
Since its inception in 1996 our Pride has grown into a multi-day festival and become one of the best and largest celebrations of its kind worldwide. The city transforms into a rainbow of events with dance parties, film festivals, sports events, debates and culture, a Pride Walk, a Rainbow Park and during the final weekend there are outdoor stages at multiple locations.
The annual highlight is of course the world-famous and unique Canal Parade, a colourful procession of 80 boats and hundreds of thousands of enthusiastic, colourfully dressed visitors. Nowhere else in the world is Pride celebrated on the water at such a scale as in Amsterdam. It is an experience every LGBTQ person should have at least once. After a 6 km route and two hours of cheering, most international LGBTQ activists return home with renewed hope and energy for the emancipation struggles in their own countries.
Stacey Lentz, LGBTQ activist and co-owner of the legendary Stonewall Inn Café in New York, said after her visit to the city:
“Pride in Amsterdam is incredible and epic, unlike anything I’ve ever seen. The whole city celebrates being who you are. Trans, Bi, Lesbian, Gay, together with straight people and whatever your identity is… everyone takes part… everyone celebrates the diversity. Pride truly takes over the entire city here! The message is really about inclusion and you can feel why this was the first country to legalise marriage for people of the same sex and why it leads the way on human rights!”
