Amsterdam celebrates the first WorldPride: the largest LGBTI event ever is more than a party

With the arrival of WorldPride, Amsterdam is preparing for the largest LGBTI event in the city's history. Tomorrow starts a two-week program full of parties, concerts, protests and activism. The annual Pride Amsterdam has been going on since July 8 and will last until July 29.

WorldPride also starts on Saturday, an international event that is held once every two years in another world city and is now in the Netherlands for the first time. With WorldPride, the celebration will take on a larger and more international format than usual, with more visitors, more events and extra attention for the global struggle for equal rights for LGBTI people. Normally hundreds of thousands of visitors attend Pride Amsterdam, but because of WorldPride the organization now expects a million people.

The mega event with the theme Unity will be opened tomorrow afternoon by Queen Máxima in the Vondelpark. The program includes street parties, concerts, the Canal Parade, a human rights conference and a Pride March to Museumplein. 53 special buildings throughout the city will also be illuminated in rainbow colors.

WorldPride in Amsterdam WorldPride is usually held every two years in a different world city and has always taken place in odd years since 2017. The last edition was last year in Washington D.C. However, after a bid, Amsterdam managed to be awarded the celebration for 2026. This was partly due to various anniversaries that the LGBTI community is celebrating this year: for example, the human rights organization COC has existed for 80 years, Amsterdam is celebrating 30 years of Pride and it has been 25 years since civil marriage was opened to same-sex couples.

Siep de Haan, together with his husband Peter Kramer and Ernst Verhoeven, devised Pride Amsterdam and the boat parade in 1996. Together they put together the event from "start to finish" for the first ten years. Amsterdam, unlike many other major Western world cities, did not yet have Pride in the 1990s.

While Pride parades arose in cities such as New York in protest against police brutality, discrimination and lagging legislation, the basis in Amsterdam was different. See here how the Netherlands made history 25 years ago with the opening of marriage to same-sex couples: "Fortunately, Amsterdam did not have that 'handicap', says De Haan. "It has been a gay paradise here since the 70s and 80s.

The rainbow community was visible and people felt safe. There was a lot of respect on both sides. De Haan and his husband noticed it themselves when they moved from the countryside to Amsterdam in the 1990s and were surprised by the open character of the city.

"With Pride we wanted to give the city of Amsterdam a gift back. We wanted to show how beautiful the community was and at the same time find a way to maintain that tolerance and safety. With a boat parade, Amsterdam had to generate extra attention and put the city further on the map as a gay nightlife city.

"Amsterdam is a small town compared to London, New York and Paris. We needed something unique.

This was our way of communicating with society: subtly, without walking with protest signs, but showing that we are there. De Haan is therefore not surprised that a million visitors are now expected for WorldPride. "Three years after we started, we were already the third event in Amsterdam.

And now we have been head and shoulders above the rest for years, he laughs. Pride is more political Unlike in the past, Pride is now more political, says De Haan, who sees the event moving along with social discussions. He is concerned, among other things, about declining LGBTI acceptance among young people. Research from the University of Amsterdam showed earlier this year that 41 percent of young people do not agree that everyone is equal, regardless of who someone falls in love with."