Charlotte Pride 2013 continues to expand, and so does One Voice’s presence at the event. We again operated our booth where we met hundreds of festival goers at the 2-day event and invited them to grab a prop and strike a pose. But this year also featured two new and exciting ways for the chorus and other LGBT-affirming organizations to participate!
This year’s Charlotte Pride festivities featured “Flourish,” a Celebration of LGBT Arts and Culture, hosted at the Bechtler Museum of Modern Art. This festival-within-a-festival showcased LGBT performing groups, visual arts and special speakers. One Voice was proud to participate in this Charlotte first for LGBT arts and artists, performing some of our recent concert favorites for a standing-room-only crowd!
“Overwhelmed by the love and support. . .”
The second big addition to this year’s Charlotte Pride activities was Charlotte’s first Pride Parade in nearly two decades, sponsored by Bank of America! Of course, One Voice was there with our absoBLOODYlutely Britist-themed float, music and … you guessed it … choreography (complete with flag twirling)! We even had our own 11-year-old Billy Elliot dancing and leaping out in front to pump up the crowd. One chorus member said, “I was overwhelmed by the love and support of the people in the parade and the thousands watching. Proud is an understatement!”
At the end of the busy weekend, the chorus had sung, danced, shaken hundreds of hands and given out huge quantities of material (and hugs) to passersby. The photo op feature in our booth let us capture pictures of so many of you flexing your silliness! Want to see? Click here to see all the people who got pictures at our booth.
But did we win the “Best Choreography” award in the parade? Not this year. But next year … watch out!
Want to see photos from the parade and festival? Click here to check out our Pride album with captions..