No event of the year creates as much reach and visibility for the queer community as the demonstration of Christopher Street Day e. V.’s in Magdeburg. As queer students, we were also aware of this and therefore started planning our project several months in advance. Already at the beginning of the year the idea came up to rent an own float at the CSD and to represent the student body of the university and college with it. This turned out to be the biggest task of the year, because none of our members had ever done something like this before.
Together with Queer2 and OvGUpride we started planning this monster event. Talks started already in spring and as it usually happens, the orga dragged on for several months and sometimes got lost on the way to the final plan.
In the end it was not only about renting a demo truck. Among other things, we also had to think about banners, which we had to design and print ourselves. (Thanks here to dear Judith, without you this wouldn’t have happened so quickly!) But the devil is in the details, and we had a lot of them. It was all about who orders which goodies, who takes care of the finances, who is on site, during set-up and dismantling, and so on. In short, the biggest project we have ever tackled.
On the day of the event, we had planned enough time, but were of course not spared from mishaps and changes of plans. We had our own booth where we laid out various goodies and the setup of the booth went smoothly for the most part. The float decorating, however, turned out to be a real challenge. The banners were so big and clunky that it took several hours to attach them to the float. Especially in such a way that they did not crease!
But once that was done, the demo soon got underway. On our float, members of our groups were allowed up for free, queer students had to pay a small surcharge of 10€ to be there. During the demo, there was a short time for speeches, which were held on the demo wagon; from our team, Ria reflected critically on Pride and the way it is mostly organized in her speech. However, due to the volume and technical limitations, it was difficult to understand the speech acoustically from afar.
For the rest of the day, it was mainly booth support that was the order of the day. Many people came by to pick up information material and stickers and to exchange ideas with us. At the street festival, there was also a stage where various people made contributions; whether music, interviews or the like, the program was diverse. Since we started early with the set-up, the event was over late and there was always something to do, everyone was quite exhausted at the end. Nevertheless, we are happy to have made our contribution to the Pride in Magdeburg and we are looking forward to the next Pride in Magdeburg in 2023!
Jako, he/j/they
Ria, all pronouns
