Anticipation for the boat parade: “Always a wonderful chaos” | NOW

Amsterdam Pride 2022 is entering the final weekend. With the street parties, the closing party on Dam Square and of course the boat parade with eighty participants. AT5 is watching the final preparations for boat 66. “We are going to make a big party of it!”

The group of friends We Are Family has been there since the beginning of the Amsterdam Pride. And they are also present this year. “We started small,” says Joost Veldman. “But we are now participating with a hundred people. We are going to make it a big party.” Last week the group participated in the Pride Walk and this weekend they are boat number 66 with the boat parade.

The outfits are being finalized at Veldman’s home, the unofficial We Are Family headquarters. The group pays attention to the details, says Joost. “And our tight choreography of course!” The moves will be rehearsed one more time on Friday evening.

Besides joy, after three years of Pride silence, there is also room for sadness for the group. They have to do without the presence of three group members, who have died in recent years: Riet, Chris and Simon, Veldman’s husband. “He passed away in 2020. So we really had to choose as a group.”

Street parties

Also part of the closing weekend: the street parties. In the Spuistraat, the Reguliersdwarsstraat and the Rembrandtplein you can dance, dance and drink outside. At the Amstel, at the Stopera, Rachel Matteman is leading the construction of the stage for the Women’s Festival. Theme this year: Who Run The World?!

“We expect about two thousand visitors,” says Matteman. “And of those, about 80 percent are women.” In the early days, Pride focused more on men, nowadays lesbian revelers can also choose from a wide range of events. “The women always mix quite easily, they can go anywhere with the Pride. Whether it’s the Homomonument or the Beursplein. But the biggest party is here, at the Stopera!”

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