On Saturday, 1 August 2015, during the busiest Amsterdam Gay Pride ever, there was an ‘empty’ boat amongst all the boats filled with people celebrating their pride. This ‘empty’ boat had more people ‘on’ it than all the other boats in the Boat Parade. 67,984 people from 128 countries all over the world, including many countries where homosexuality is still taboo, sailed on this boat as virtual passengers via the 360⁰ livestream on the secured website www.Pridestream.org.
Pridestream enables people from all over the world who can’t openly show their pride to be part of the Amsterdam Canal Parade and experience the feeling of being their true self. Thanks to this technology, using their smartphones, iPads or computers, they were able to see what it was like to be a passenger on one of these boats, complete with sound and video. The boat was equipped with huge LED screens which displayed the participating people from all over the world.