The thirteenth edition of Antwerp Pride is over. Antwerp Pride 2021 will take place from 12 tot 15 August. Hopefully free from coronavirus countermeasures.

Without a parade, festival and afterparties in the city center, the 2020 edition became a modest introspective version of Antwerp Pride that could mainly be experienced digitally. Tens of thousands found their way to the digital platform AntwerpPride.TV.

That platform got hacked by the way, but the crew set up an alternative quickly.

The channel reached about 15,000 unique visitors during the pride week. The site could continuously count on thirty visitors and those visitors also lingered on the site for a long time. There was a clear peak on Sunday, August 9, with 66% more visitors than the day before.

The channel gave viewers access to documentaries, LGBTQ short films, news about LGBTQ themes, DJ sets and much more. The channel will remain online for a while.

There was also a walk where normally the parade takes place. Along this route were thirteen portraits of people who have a special bond with the Antwerp LGBTQ scene.

People could walk this ‘Trail of Stories‘ in their bubble or individually. The story behind the person could be discovered by means of a QR code. During pride week, the QR codes were scanned about 2,000 times. And about 9,000 people learned about the ‘Trail of Stories’ stories online.

There were also ten guided walks through the city and the Middelheim Museum and these were sold out.

The exhibition ‘Together.‘ in the M HKA will run until September 6.

During the past Antwerp Pride weekend, the police reported no significant incidents.

Coronavirus countermeasures

Antwerp Pride already announced a corona version of the LGBTQ party in Antwerp on 8 July, but that slimmed-down version also had to be scaled back further due to the stricter measures that the City of Antwerp announced at the beginning of August.

For example, the human rights event ‘Human Rights Friday‘ had to be canceled at the eleventh hour and the movies screenings also had to be canceled.

“We look back with mixed feelings. Our volunteers have set up a project in a short time and under ever-changing circumstances that we can be very proud of”, says Antwerp Pride chairman Bart Abeel.

“I want to thank our partners, sponsors, but also everyone who has raised a flag, visited the site or brought color to the city in some way or other to continue to nurture the pride idea. The scenes we have seen in Poland in recent days should rightly keep us vigilant.”

“But you cannot be ‘happy’ or ‘satisfied’ when a virus is still making victims. Organizing Antwerp Pride is also done together with the bars and clubs, the event and entertainment industry, the arts, social sector … all those industries that are hit very hard by the pandemic. Together we can only hope for better times and then we will make it a party again.”