The goals of Sydney WorldPride

The vision of Sydney WorldPride was for a worldclass festival of LGBTQIA+ arts and culture that was inclusive, diverse, and accessible, built through committed partnerships.

To bring this vision to life, Sydney WorldPride developed 8 key goals and a theme which reflected on the strengths of the international LGBTQIA+ community. The goals of Sydney WorldPride 2023 (see right) provided a set of guiding principles to inform the programming and delivery.

The festival theme: Gather, Dream, Amplify spoke to the purpose and intended legacy of the festival.

The theme of Sydney WorldPride was developed following widespread consultation with the national LGBTQIA+ community across the planning stage.

Gather, Dream, Amplify reflected the festival’s intentions to celebrate with an international community, and to consider the next frontier of inclusion, and Australia’s role in supporting these goals across Asia Pacific.

The theme also presented a framework to understand the social benefits of Sydney WorldPride and is used as the organising structure in the social impact component of this report.

The Goals of Sydney WorldPride 2023

1. Ensure that the Festival embraces First Nations perspectives and culture. Australia is home to the oldest continuous culture in the world. As such, our Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander LGBTQIA+ communities bring their own distinct voices and stories to share. Their contribution and voice was made an integral part of the event calendar of Sydney WorldPride 2023.

2. Showcase the breadth of Australian LGBTQIA+ arts and culture to regional, national and international visitors. The Festival will truly showcase the high calibre of LGBTQIA+ visionary artists from Australia across multiple art-forms.

3. Ensure that the Festival is accessible. Our events will be created with a strong focus on accessibility ensuring that people living with disability are considered at all stages of event development. Removing barriers to access across the Festival will be front and centre in our planning.

4. Develop sustainable and mutually beneficial partnerships. Our partnerships will be built on a foundation of genuine engagement and collaboration. We highly value our stakeholders, artists, audiences, visitors and event producers and we demonstrate this through care and respect.

5. Ensure that our communities and audiences feel safe, welcome and represented. Our events will be developed with empathy and consideration of the audience experience.

6. Ensure a multiplicity of voices across the Festival and through the curation of the Festival program. Our processes in the development of the Festival will be equitable and open and embrace multiple perspectives.

7. Deliver a financially viable program. The Festival Program will be developed with financial responsibility, thorough planning and appropriate resourcing.

8. Develop a Festival that is environmentally responsible. We will commit to reducing carbon emissions from operations and events with the aim of preserving a healthy natural environment for future generations.1