With 37 floats and messages in favor of equality, the event covered eight kilometers in a festive and colorful atmosphere, accompanied by music, dancing and the active participation of families, associations and local authorities.
The Maspalomas Pride Parade, the largest in recent years, featured 37 floats that traveled along the main avenues of Playa del Inglés this Saturday, with the participation of more than 100.000 people of different nationalities.
With a temperature of 25 degrees, the multicolored journey began at 4:00 p.m., led by the families of trans minors and young people from the Chrysallis Canarias Association, who carried t-shirts and banners with protest phrases, such as 'Before 18 we also exist', 'My family is cooler because it has a trans child' and 'It's not my body it's your gaze'.
Freedom LGBT Association, organizer of Maspalomas Pride, and Editorial Siete Islas paraded with the banner 'The pride of reading', in which Ismael Lozano, manager of Editorial Siete Islas; Fernando Ilarduya, director of Maspalomas Pride; the mayor of San Bartolomé de Tirajana, Marco Aurelio Pérez; the First Deputy Mayor of the SBT City Council, Alejandro Marichal; the councilor for Equality and Diversity of the SBT City Council, Esther Delgado; the councilor for Tourism, Festivals and Events of SBT, Yilenia Vega, and, councilor for Sports of SBT, Ramón Suárez, participated.
And then came the banner of the SBT Socialist Group, with the slogan 'For Diversity' in several languages. The colorful procession proceeded smoothly, thanks to the excellent organization of the parade, which set off to the rhythm of a batucada band. The floats, decorated for the occasion with protest messages, carried more than 4.000 people who danced non-stop until the end of the route.
The large fans at Maspalomas Pride helped combat the heat during the Parade of Floats, with messages such as 'Be free to love whoever you want and be proud of who you are', 'Your voice sounds with pride', 'We are all equal', 'Freedom and love' or 'There is no Pride without Trans people. There is no silence in the face of hate', as a show of rejection of the worrying regression of rights that the LGTBIQ+ community and trans people are suffering in several countries of the world.
The participants proudly displayed the colors of the rainbow, the emblem created to defend tolerance, and hundreds of flags waved from the balconies of hotels and apartments throughout the march.
As in previous years, Televisión Española broadcast the Parade on La 2 for all of Spain and on the International Channel, thanks to the great work done by fifty professionals, under the coordination of Paqui González, regional director of RTVE in the Canary Islands.
The multicolored parade covered the 8 kilometers along the main avenues of Playa del Inglés, up to the Yumbo, where more than 20.000 people enjoyed the Gala show, with music, dancing and performances until dawn, with the 'FREEDOM Pride' gala, featuring the performance of the singer Alba Serrano and music provided by the DJs: San Keryton (Brazil), Marc (Spain), Urlan (Brazil), Jose Rendón (Venezuela), Joseph Wolf (Brazil).
The 25th edition of Maspalomas Pride by Freedom is sponsored by the San Bartolomé de Tirajana City Council, through its Department of Tourism; the Gran Canaria Island Council, through its Department of Tourism; and the Government of the Canary Islands, with additional support from RTVE, Sonocom, Absolut, Red Bull, Music Meets Tourism, Viajes Canarias Europa, Schauinsland Reisen, and Haus of Health. Chrysallis Canarias, Gay Les Point, and 8 Islas Canarias LGTBI are also collaborating on the event.
