Undoubtedly, the biggest part of the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras is the final weekend of the festival – the annual Mardi Gras parade.
It’s the one big draw that gets literally hundreds of thousands of people lining Oxford St to shut down the LGBTQI heartland and turn it into one massive party full of colour and feathers and celebration. Oh and glitter. SO MUCH GLITTER.
Each year there are a whole bunch of outrageous floats, and this year with a huge 184 floats in the parade, we stopped and thought ‘wait…how the fuck do these things get put together?‘
PEDESTRIAN.TV went behind the sparkly veil and scoped out how much blood, sweat, and glitter goes into creating the flashy floats that crawl up toward Taylor Square every year, and had a chat with the creative team behind one of the floats.
DIY Rainbow have made a bit of a name for themselves by being one of the more topical floats in recent years — last year they supported ultra-posi Sydney icon, Danny Lim — and this year they’re bringing a memorial float for George Michael to the parade with ‘Freedom! The Float’.
The float itself is shaping up to be a bit of a standout on the night. The team have wrangled local street artist Scott Marsh to recreate his iconic mural in Erskineville for the float, and have enlisted around 100 people to dance behind the truck to the sounds of George’s greatest hits.
Scott recreating his iconic Saint George in James’ lounge room (Photo: PEDESTRIAN.TV)The concept of the float has been in development with George’s personal friends in Sydney and the DIY Rainbow team since earlier this year.
“We came up with the idea when George passed away in late December,” DIY Rainbow’s founder James Brechney tells PEDESTRIAN.TV.
“So we’ve been working on it since January, but this week for us is the big week where all the procrastination comes to an end and we have to pull it all together – rain, hail or shine.”
James tells us that this year’s float has been a very all-hands-on-deck affair, as the big rush to get things looking fantastic for the parade on Saturday night has really set in.
Each of the 100 people that will be in this year’s float have gotten their hands dirty with the build, but some have skills that are absolutely crucial to the float surviving each year.
“One guy – Isaac – he’s our straight ally, he’s a woodworker and he builds our float every year. He’s incredible. Without him I wouldn’t be able to do [the parade],” James says.
“It’s a little bit top-heavy, but we have a small team of about five to ten people that do most of the work.”
James has also roped in his family to help with the build, most of which has happened inside James’ narrow terrace house in Redfern, because y’know, Sydney decided to get belted with rain in the whole week leading up to the parade.
James’ house is crowded with all the trimmings of this year’s float. (Photo: PEDESTRIAN.TV)
But what happens after the parade? It’s a bit of a rat race to get everything done and get out of the way from the stampede behind the float, it seems.
James tells us that everything that the group doesn’t want to keep has to get ripped off the trucks and put all in a pile, before moving the trucks and parade marchers/dancers off into the night and the awating festivities.
(Hot tip: If you want some seriously glittery prop stuff for events, occasions, or general life, hit up Reverse Garbage in Marrickville next weekend for all the bits and pieces from this year’s floats. Oh my god yes.)
Here’s the best part – we’ve been invited to actually *be* on this year’s George Michael tribute float. I KNOW. So if you wanna come along and see what it’s like to be in the parade itself, then follow us on Instagram (we’re @pedestriantvbtw) on Saturday evening and join us in celebrating the LGBTQI community in Australia.
Photo: Getty / Brendon Thorne.
