Organisers of Saturday night's Wellington International Pride Parade say the event will go ahead despite six of our biggest banks pulling the pin on their support.
They decided against participating after several rainbow organisations announced they would boycott the third annual parade over concerns about how it was run.
'Celebrate Together' was a message written on a sign at last year's Wellington International Pride Parade, where banks showed their support.
This year that celebration is on hold.
"I don't understand the politics of what happened within that group but they obviously decided they didn't want to attend," parade co-chair Richard Tait told Newshub.
Six of our biggest banks - Westpac, ANZ, BNZ, ASB, Kiwibank and TSB - revealed earlier this week they were pulling out.
"I mean obviously we're disappointed," Tait said.
The banks, acting as a collective, pulled the pin after various community groups asked them to.
"I think we're all quite grateful for their decision to pull out, I can appreciate that's not a really easy decision," said UniQ spokesperson Brock Stobbs.
Last month those groups, including UniQ, announced they were boycotting the event because they felt the parade was not connected with many in the rainbow community.
They believe it's becoming too commercially focused.
"The feedback we have gotten is that they don't feel like the pride parade is inclusive of them or represents them," Stobbs said.
Parade co-chair Richard Tait said they'll meet with community groups after tonight's event to discuss a way forward.
"We may not necessarily agree with all their points and they won't agree with ours and the way forward is to try to get some solution," Tait said.
Either way the party will go on.
