Sydney’s Mardi Gras marches on despite virus venue change

The famous SCG a Covid-safe sea of sequins as Mardi Gras moves from the streets to the stadium.

Mardi Gras revellers at the Sydney Cricket Ground Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone

The gleaming pageantry of Sydney’s Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras parade couldn’t be dulled by a Covid-forced venue change on Saturday night as marchers — well, most of them — moved from the streets to a stadium.

Revellers usually line the traditional parade route through the city’s LGBT hub, but due to COVID-19 concerns, the event was held inside the Sydney Cricket Ground to an audience of 36,000.

Splinter protest

But that didn’t stop a splinter group of protesters holding their own rally, despite police efforts to stop it.

A group of breakaway Mardi Gras protesters went ahead with a rally on Saturday afternoon that police had tried to stop in the Supreme Court.

Traditionally, the march is held along Oxford Street and split-off group Pride in Protest, who believe the parade has abandoned its radical roots and embraced a bland, corporate vision of LGBTQIA rights, had its own parade at its traditional home.

The protest started at 2pm, with revellers meeting at Taylor Square in Darlinghurst.

Via a Facebook group, Pride in Protest said 3000 people went on the march.

“Together we stand with pride against homophobia, biphobia, transphobia, and racism,” the group said.

“The police came out in force, but we beat them in the courts and the streets.

Earlier NSW Police commissioner Mick Fuller filed a summons in the Supreme Court to halt the protest that, if granted, would have put protesters at risk of fines and arrest.

But that motion was thrown out by NSW Police after NSW Health granted an exemption for the march to go ahead provided attendees followed COVID protocols.

SCG parade attracts 5000 participants

Later, at the SCG, the parade proper marched on.

The parade lights up the SCG. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Flavio Brancaleone

“It is such an amazing event we’ve had this year, to really be together, to fight what we’ve had,” Dr Bushan Joshi, who marched with other frontline health workers.

Joshi, one of the 5000 parade participants, said it was amazing to see so many people together, safely celebrating at the SCG.

The usually boisterous street parade was corralled inside the sports ground in an attempt to prevent the potential spread of COVID-19.

But the tightly managed spectacle, filled with pyrotechnics, dazzling performances and speckled with corporate sponsors, was a far cry from the first 1978 protest, which ended in the violent arrest of activists on Oxford Street.

A large contingent of the original marchers took to the ground alongside several groups pushing for political change, including calls for transgender rights and an end to deaths of Indigenous Australians in police custody.

Around the city countless more partied at pubs and bars, as Sydney’s state of New South Wales went 48 days without a local transmission of the virus.

The ability to celebrate the event at all is a mark of Australia’s success in suppressing COVID-19, with over 29,000 cases and 909 deaths linked to the virus in a population of over 25 million.