Canal Parade Amsterdam
Each year in the first weekend of august a typical Amsterdam event is held since 1996: a gay parade on boats through one of the canals. It started as a way to get Amsterdam comfortable with the ‘invasion of gays’ for the Gay Games 1998, when the gays really took over the Amsterdam centre.
Year by year it became bigger. Because of security it’s now so expensive that’s it over-organized. We used to get in small boat, hook up with a friend’s boat and afterwards follow the boats to the endpoint. That’s not possible anymore.