Covid-19

Auckland Pride’s plan to prepare for restrictions and protect our communities against COVID-19 using vaccinations.

Auckland Pride's COVID-19 Plan:

Auckland Pride is committed to delivering a Festival that keeps the health and safety of our community at the heart. Every decision that we, and our event organisers make, will be with your safety in mind.

In 2021 the Auckland Pride Festival was impacted by two lockdowns in response to community cases of COVID-19, and our response to those two lockdowns was regarded as industry-leading. However, New Zealand’s Delta outbreak has resulted in the Government changing strategy, and high rates of vaccination will complement basic public health measures and some levels of restriction where required.

While the overall goal of Auckland Pride’s COVID-19 Response of keeping our community safe hasn’t changed, our focus now has shifted to protecting our communities from transmission of COVID-19 at Pride events, alongside preparing for changes in levels that would change the way our events could take place. Vaccinations are now the key tool that we have to prevent transmission at our events, which is why they’re mandated.

Once again, our plan will revolve around every Festival event having a contingency plan for each level of restrictions. These plans will be rolled out as necessary, and communicated by Auckland Pride soon after the change in levels is announced. This information will be found here, and on the individual event listings. Additionally, we are asking our event organisers to plan to use vaccine mandates for participants, performers and panellists, and everyone involved in the event. We continue to ask our communities to follow public health advice, by getting vaccinated, staying home if sick, and using the COVID Tracer App.

Auckland Pride will continue to work with the COVID-19 All of Government Response Group with assets and advice to ensure that we are doing all we can to prevent transmission of COVID-19 during the Auckland Pride Festival. We will continue to plan extensively with contingency plans, contracts and agreements, resources and support, and a timeline with which to support our decision making.

Omicron:

At this time, Auckland Pride has not made any decisions relating to the status of the 2022 Auckland Pride Festival. However, the risk assessments undertaken by Auckland Pride have determined that the Festival will not proceed if there’s an outbreak of Omicron in the community. Read more

The COVID-19 Protection Framework:

The 2022 Auckland Pride Festival will be delivered while the COVID-19 Protection Framework is in place. Because Auckland Pride has put in place a vaccine mandate for all events, this new framework provides greater certainty to all events and will reduce disruption to the Festival.

With a vaccine mandate in place, events in the 2022 Auckland Pride Festival will take place as follows:

Red:

Events can take place with restrictions similar to those of Alert Level Two. Events (indoors and outdoors) can take place with a maximum of 100 people, with 1m distancing, seated, and separated. Masks will be mandatory for all events delivered at Red.

Orange:

This is the level where the majority of Auckland Pride Festival events can go ahead with no restrictions. Events can take place normally with no gathering limits, except for those in public facilities (museums etc.) where capacity limits are based on 1m distancing. In these venues masks are also mandated, otherwise masks are recommended for all indoor events.

Green:

This is the level where all Auckland Pride Festival events can go ahead with no restrictions. Masks are encouraged for large indoor events.

For Festival event-goers:

To make Pride unstoppable, we need your help again! We need you to continue to follow basic public health measures that keep us safe, and could prevent more severe, prolonged restrictions. Get a COVID-19 vaccine, stay home and get a test if you’re sick, and use the NZ COVID Tracer App to scan QR codes and turn on Bluetooth Tracing.

To attend a Pride event, you need to be fully vaccinated against COVID-19. At every Pride event, we need you to register in advance or buy a ticket, scan the QR code of the venue or event, and have your bluetooth tracing turned on. These simple but effective measures ensure that we can safely trace, isolate, and test members of our community if necessary.

Ultimately, this is about more than the festival. This is about the overarching safety and wellbeing of our communities. We saw the vicious outpouring of homophobia in South Korea after a person infected with COVID-19 visited gay bars – so these measures protect us, our communities, and all of Aotearoa. These simple measures that you can take keep us all safe, and allow us to have another incredibly successful Auckland Pride Festival.

For Festival event organisers:

Auckland Pride has updated our How To Plan a Pride Event in a Pandemic resource for event organisers. It provides up to date advice on the COVID-19 Protection Framework, on our response in 2021, and centres around three key principles: Plan ahead, be transparent, and be consistent. The resource also provides more detail about our rollout of vaccine mandates across the Festival. You can read the guide here:

How to plan a Pride event in a pandemic

All event organisers must follow the NZ COVID-19 Event Sector Voluntary Code in the execution of their event, must have registrations/tickets available in advance of the event, must ensure everyone uses the NZ COVID Tracer App, and have a plan for their event if Level Red is imposed in Auckland.

Individual events will have their COVID-19 contingency plans available on their event listing on the Auckland Pride Website. Event organisers will largely follow these in the event of restrictions being imposed but are subject to change. All changes to events will be listed in a media release, and updates will be provided in the COVID-19 section of the event listing.

Latest Updates:

19 Jan: Auckland Pride Omicron Update