“An Outsourced Smouldering Wreckage”: Pride in Protest’s Miles Carter on Mardi Gras Afterparty Cancellation

Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras chief executive Jesse Matheson announced on Tuesday, 3 February 2026, that the official afterparty has been cancelled. The CEO said the event has been suffering losses recently and the afterparty is a chief reason. But Pride in Protest is querying why it was decided to outsource the afterparty to Gaza genocide complicit company Kicks Entertainment.

This cancellation of the afterparty is a devastating announcement to be made just 25 days out from the event, as it is up there with the parade and Fair Day.

This development has risen after a general shift to outsourcing festival events, which Mardi Gras announced last August. However, on speaking to Pride in Protest lead candidate in last year’s election for the board, Luna Choo, she explained that the Bondi Beach party had been outsourced to events company Fuzzy, which also has ties to the Gaza genocide.

Pride in Protest further questioned the relationship with Kicks, when Mardi Gras’ ethical charter states that it should not enter into contracts with companies involved in war and genocide. Yet, of late, the organisation has struck up two arrangements with genocide complicit companies, at a time when the community is still reeling from the impacts of the ongoing Gaza genocide.

The social justice-minded trans rights group has long been calling on the SGLMG organisation to drop its corporate sponsorships. But rather than heed these warnings about compromising the event, the general shift to outsourcing appears to involve relationships with morally bankrupt companies that can’t even get it together to pull off an event.

Abandoning trans rights

The cancellation of the afterparty further comes on the back of a surprise move by the Mardi Gras Board, which involved it, two weeks ago, sending out an email announcing that it would not be actioning three Pride in Protest motions successfully moved at last year’s annual general meeting (AGM), one of which involved this year’s event prioritising trans rights.

This announcement was taken as a conservative pushback against trains gains at a moment when the US Trump administration has just spent the last 12 months revoking transgender rights, while the Queensland government recently moved to outlaw medical treatment for trans youth and a moral panic recently erupted over transgender prisoners in the Northern Territory.

Sydney Criminal Lawyers spoke to Pride in Protest member Miles Carter about the significance of the cancellation of the Mardi Gras afterparty, the rising habit of the organisation to enter into relationships with companies complicit in genocide and the pushback that appears to be happening in respect of trans rights.

Miles, Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras announced on Tuesday that the official afterparty has been cancelled.

Pride in Protest is calling out this cancellation, asserting that is the result of a disastrous decision of the Mardi Gras organisation to go with corporate sponsor Kicks, as it has links to the genocide in Gaza.

So, can you elaborate further on why this is problematic?

Corporate sponsors are incredibly unreliable. In this case, the corporate sponsor has explicit links to genocide, which we rightfully want to call out. For an organisation like Mardi Gras, to actively take on this contract was disastrous.

The answer to what will make our community’s parties better will never be excepting funding from a company with immense connections to crimes against humanity.

Live Nation has a subsidiary, Live Nation Israel, which hosts parties on stolen land over the top of the remains of what were once Palestinian villages.

We know that Live Nation through its US-backed private equity also maintains extensive investments in weapons, surveillance and Israeli tech companies. Live Nation also donates money to Donald Trump.

So, we can see crystal clear evidence of this complicity both in imperialism and apartheid. It is obvious that a company like this is the antithesis of what our community needs, let alone desires.

This afterparty has so much potential to be amazing. It could easily be an event that our community could take part and join in, but instead, we get this outsourced smouldering wreckage.

It is for these reasons that Pride and Protest has criticised blood thirsty Live Nation and called on Mardi Gras to pursue public funding with respect to the membership resolution at the 2025 AGM.

The afterparty has always been a key part of Mardi Gras, so the cancellation of it must be having a big impact on the community? 

That is true. This party has gone awry with its funding, so that it no longer was true to its original nature.

The afterparty is almost as old as the parade itself. So, it is going to be a huge setback for the Mardi Gras organisation.

I spoke to Luna Choo, current SLGMG Pride and Protest board member in November last year, and she explained that Fuzzy, another events promoter that’s linked to the Gaza genocide, was going to be running this year’s Mardi Gras Bondi Beach party.

Pride in Protest has been campaigning against comprised Mardi Gras corporate sponsorship for almost a decade. However, it would appear that over recent years, this has gotten worse to the point of genocide complicity.

Can you talk about this broader issue and why it’s getting worse? What does it mean for Mardi Gras participants, when such sponsorships are continuing?

Fuzzy is a company with links to genocide in Gaza. Fuzzy is a subsidiary of Superstruct Entertainment owned by American private equity firm KKR, which has major investments in the systems of apartheid against the Palestinian people.

At the 2025 AGM, it was announced that Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras had decided not to partner with Fuzzy, which was a win.

The Mardi Gras decision came in the face of community pressure against Fuzzy’s connections to genocide. Therefore, Mighty Hoopla is not a part of the official Mardi Gras season lineup of events, and many artists have dropped out of the festival, including DJs, for the same reasons.

The council tender for this party needs to be given back to public hands, and companies like Fuzzy, who invest in weapons, surveillance and real estate – that steals Palestinian land – need to get out of our Pride.

The broader issue is these companies do not have morals and will do anything to hide that fact. They see association with the queer community as a way to pinkwash for profit.

For Mardi Gras to sell out to these companies gives them the social licence to appear aligned with our community, when this could not be further from the truth.

Companies like Fuzzy and Live Nation are using the Mardi Gras to absolve themselves of their crimes. They will invest and contribute to genocide and then hold a queer festival, where they get to appear as allies to our communities.

This is also a common strategy of Israel, branding itself as a queer-friendly state, while murdering queer Palestinians in the same breath.

This is plain and simple pinkwashing and corporations have been doing it for decades. We have to reject the role of these companies in our Pride season and seek alternatives such as public funding.

Pride in Protest points out that continuing on with such sponsorship, like that underpinning the now cancelled afterparty, contradicts the organisation’s own Ethical Charter.

How would Pride and Protest like to see the SGLMG operating? What sort of overall change does your organisation consider the event should undertake, and how would an event that appears to be so reliant on corporate sponsorship make that shift?

Mardi Gras needs to call for public funding. Corporations have proved time and time again that they do not serve the interests of our community, and they only aim to line their own pockets.

Only recently did AMEX pull out funding after years of people telling Mardi Gras that it should not take money from a company that discriminates against sex workers, for example.

Corporate funding is unreliable and historically morally corrupt. The party cancellation should be a major wakeup call about how taking blood money will not lead to a successful event or financial stability.

The membership has also made that clear, with the positioning seen at the 2025 AGM, which said we want a publicly-funded Pride.

I would also argue that Mardi Gras does not have to be reliant on corporate funding.

As much as these companies need to be reliant on the queer community to pinkwash their images, rather we need to disconnect from this toxic strategy of unethical funding, which has proved unsustainable and unsuccessful.

This comes at a point in time of another controversy with Mardi Gras, as recently the board confirmed to the membership that it would not be centring trans rights as part of the event, which would have been in keeping with a majority progressed Pride in Protest motion from the 2025 annual general meeting.

Can you talk about what this involved?

It is no surprise that a company would continue to deny trans rights and then go against its own ethical charter and partner with genocide complicit companies.

The Mardi Gras board needs to wake up to what queer people and humanity broadly is experiencing when we collectively experience an ongoing livestreamed genocide. But at the same time, instead, we are seeing trans rights being stripped away both globally and in our country.

What we see is a Mardi Gras board stubbornly ignoring its membership and refusing to act on three motions passed at the 2025 AGM, which called for trans rights not Trump, public funding and antidiscrimination reform.

These decisions are a clear turn to the right by the Mardi Gras board. Mardi Gras does need corporate US genocide-backed sponsorships, the same way that trans people do not need Trump style terror legislation.

We need to bring back Mardi Gras to the community.

And lastly, Miles, over recent years, Pride in Protest candidates and policies have been popular amongst the SGLMG to the point of its candidates taking out the elections and its motions, which were once voted down, now being in the majority.

However, last year saw the appearance of another Mardi Gras organisation, Save Mardi Gras, which formed in direct response to Pride in Protest. The forces behind it, appear to be pushing back against Pride in Protest positions.

How would you describe what is happening with Mardi Gras at present? And how would you say the example of the Mardi Gras afterparty cancellation reflects this?

This year, Pride in Protest ran on a platform of queers for Palestine, cops our of Mardi Gras and antidiscrimination reform, and we witnessed Luna getting elected with the highest primary vote, which I consider a reflection of ongoing political unrest and testament to the fact that queer people are demanding a grassroots noncorporate Mardi Gras that actually represents them.

Protect Mardi Gras has endorsed both Liberal and Labor Party members. These parties give millions of dollars in extra funding to the police each year. They fund and provide weapons to the genocide in Gaza and vote for antiqueer legislation, like religious vilification, while making election promises to queer people that they can’t keep.

This is what Protect Mardi Gras represents. The cancellation of the afterparty reflects incompetent and out of touch decision-making.