THE PRIDE FESTIVAL IN YOUR BACK Y[A.R]D

World first A.R Pride Festival Floats in collaboration with Snapchat’s Official Lens Creators (OLCs) and Gay Star News (GSN).

2020 marked a serious dampener on Pride celebrations. At the start of lockdown we watched as Pride festivals around the globe were cancelled or postponed. Wanting to find an innovative, digital, safe way to bring the joyous, celebratory feeling of Pride home we engaged some of Snapchat’s team of OLCs, the super cool kids pushing the boundaries of art an A.R design, to design and build their own Pride floats. Released on Saturday 1st August 2020, to align with when Brighton Pride would have taken place, the Digital Pride festival floats were spectacular, immersive, playful extensions of the IRL version. Working with a mix of OLCs from the LGBT+ community and allies, each float has a unique story, with the individual creators empowered to put their own signature spin on their float.

One OLC, Joshua Keeney, who brought his alter ego “Neptune” to life in his spectacular, futuristic float, described the importance of technology for the future of Pride festivals: “[it’s] an opportunity to create not just a Pride that brings people together in the present when we can't be together - but also a Pride of the future. One that embraces technologies and new mediums for exploring and celebrating identity.”