Last summer, Shanghai came out of the closet, hosting the country's first ever PRIDE Festival. Although many of the events went off without a hitch, the week long celebration was marred by several glitches. This year Shanghai revellers can expect a wholly different, but entirely entertaining experience as organisers are changing up the game to prevent anyone from horning in on the fun.

Since ShanghaiPRIDE 2009 was the first mass gay event in Mainland China, local gay activists and legal professionals advised the organisers to bill the event as “by foreigners, for foreigners”. Thus the faces of the celebration were two laowai and the events were geared to the expat population. This concept was deemed unsustainable as accusations of cultural colonialism led to a local re-positioning of the event; this year, ten of the 12 members of the organising team are Chinese and the remaining two hail from Singapore and Malaysia and speak Mandarin fluently. 

Kenneth Tan, spokesperson for ShanghaiPRIDE and one of the foreign organisers, explained that participants can expect smaller cultural events at ShanghaiPRIDE, as opposed to the partying that often accompanies gay pride festivals in other parts of the world. "In Shanghai, lots of parties are happening all the time anyway, so we thought the ShanghaiPRIDE line-up should go beyond that and offer a bit more substance, with art, cultural, educational and sporting elements,” says Tan. “It's going to be a PRIDE festival with Chinese characteristics." 

That means no parade and definitely no protests or demonstrations. The theme of this year is “Unity. Diversity. Harmony.” and the festival is designed to celebrate China’s estimated 40 to 130 million strong lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) population, while quietly raising the general public’s awareness about the community. Most events will be held indoors in “safe venues” and locations won’t be released until a day or two before to ensure things run a bit more smoothly this year.