The Salzburg 2024 Pride Festival is now history again. A colourful story that once again showed the diversity of the queer community in the province of Salzburg – with many visitors from all over Austria, neighbouring Germany and many other countries.

The fact that the city of Salzburg actively supports the queer festival for diversity and tolerance could be recognised in the cityscape by the many rainbow motifs in a wide variety of forms.

The weather gods could also be queer. The best summer weather prevailed throughout the entire Pride Festival. For some it was already too warm. Here is a look back at some of the events.

On Saturday 31 August, the Pride Picnic took place in Hans Donnenbergpark in Nonntal. The picnic area with a DJ performance was a stone’s throw from the Almkanal, where sporty students and students of sport let themselves be carried along by the current in the cold water. This created a very pleasant atmosphere of Pride Festival participants and other visitors in the sweaty park – Summer in the City.

On Monday 1 September, it was once again Queer am I? Cornelia Mayer had once again prepared some funny and some bizarre questions for the quiz in the Academy Bar. As in the previous year, the pub quiz turned into a good-humoured event in Salzburg’s Andräviertel district.

On Tuesday and Wednesday (3-4 September), two workshops and a film evening focused on the question “How to deal with increasing right-wing extremism?“. In the workshop “Attention Fake! Learning to read pictures“ at the Obersalzberg Documentation, propaganda photos from the 1930s and 1940s were analysed, assessed and put into context. The workshop  “Right-wing extremism under the magnifying glass“ got to the bottom of hidden codes and uncovered the true intentions of right-wing extremist actors.

And in the evening, Das Kino hosted a queer film evening. ‘Nelly & Nadine’ tells the story of a Belgian opera singer and a Chinese resistance fighter. A love story that began in Ravensbrück concentration camp in 1944. Afterwards, Natasche Bobrowsky from the Centre for Queer History, Ines Kirchschläger from HOSI Salzburg and Nadine Tauscher from Dokumentation Obersalzberg put the film in context with the events it recounts. A final Q&A session with the audience rounded off this impressive evening at Das Kino.

Also on Tuesday (3 September), there was a very entertaining evening in the Rooftop Bar of the arte Hotel. Gigi LaPajette and Grazia Patricia hosted a live evening of singing against the backdrop of the night falling over Salzburg. A super performance!

Being queer and religious. They go together. That was the experience of the ecumenical queer service in the Kollegienkirche on Wednesday (4 September). A priest from the Catholic, Protestant and Old Catholic churches demonstrated with their prayers that religion and faith are for everyone, no matter who you are or who you love. God’s favourite colour is colourful, as colourful as the many people in the world are.

Birgit Leichsenring from the Chemsex Network Vienna also travelled to the event on Wednesday evening. Together with Dr Arno Beer, she brought those interested in the Dark Eagle up to date with the latest knowledge about viruses. She also presented the results of the World AIDS Conference in Munich in July. PrEP as protection against HIV infection was also a topic. Information on the topic and addresses of doctors and pharmacies can be found at www.hivprep.at.

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The queer opera by English composer Iain Bell was eagerly awaited on Thursday (5 September) at the Kollegienkirche in Salzburg’s old town. The production by Kammeroper Salzburg was also the Austrian premiere of the two pieces, which deal with the death of a friend from Aids and the bullying of a queer pupil. Socio-political topics with high relevance. If you have already experienced the death of a friend, the texts performed really got under your skin. The musical realisation on the piano, on the other hand, took some getting used to for some listeners.

On Thursday, the Magic Garage also had their acclaimed Pride performance in the Academy Bar.

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Friday (6 September) started with the rainbow market in front of HOSI Salzburg. In the meantime, part of the car park was transformed into a lounge zone, the Vielfalts-Platzl. From 6pm, festival participants and random passers-by gathered here to get in the mood for Gigi’s Bingo, among other things. The leather and fetish scene was also almost complete by now and grooved into the Pride weekend – later in the Dark Eagle.

On Saturday (7 September), the fetish friends came together in full regalia in Mirabell Gardens for a photo shoot – in the best imperial weather. Afterwards, the reigning Mr Fetish Austria answered questions from gaysalzburg.at

The CSD parade and Pride Night followed on Saturday. Click here for the pictures of the parade and the Pride Night at ARGE Kultur.

There were a number of other events such as cooking with Olina, the dance workshop with members of the Salzburg State Theatre Ballet and the queer poetry slam.

This is how Salzburg experienced its third Pride Festival in a row. ‘Open to all’ as the city of Salzburg postulated on one of its posters (see above). A positive development continued this year, with the queer community and urban society increasingly meeting on an equal footing. Happy Pride!

A contribution by Peter Goebel. Collaboration Sebastian Brandstätter, Florian Niederseer and Carina Karolus (cover photo)