News of: Sunday, August 02 2009,
The 14th edition of the Gay Pride tour through the Prinsengracht canal in the centre of Amsterdam, has drawn a record number of 560,000 visitors.
Last year, there were about 500,000 visitors.
The increase may be partly due to the nice weather, but probably also due to the large press coverage before the event.
One of the main highlights on the (maximum) 80 decorated ships that paraded the canal was the marriage of 5 Dutch-American gay couples, performed by Mayour Job Cohen. Job Cohen concluded the first gay marriage in the Netherlands on April 1, 2001.
This year's gay pride tour also made the news because of:
- The Christian Democrat party took part on a boat
- Military staff were allowed to take part in uniform, for the first time
- The official boat of the City of Amsterdam left from Slotervaart, a neighbourhood in Amsterdam-West where many muslims live.
- There was a boat with professional (top) sports people
On this Youtube video you can see some footage of the tour (mostly in Dutch), including one of the married Dutch-American couples.
