WorldPride Amsterdam with Avani – lashes, literature and living out loud

Pack the glitter, tease the hair and prepare to sashay your way into the biggest queer celebration on the planet. WorldPride Amsterdam with Avani means serving a deliciously extra mix of drag royalty, disco-fuelled bingo, poetry, books and canal-side revelry, all wrapped up in the effortless cool of one of Europe’s most LGBTQ+-friendly cities. From lashes that could start a revolution to queer cultural conversations, Avani Museum Quarter Amsterdam is inviting you to something that’s just impossible to resist, darling!

The Dutch capital turns up the volume for WorldPride Amsterdam with our friends at Avani Museum Quarter Amsterdam putting themselves at the cultural centre of the celebration – where drag, disco, books and poetry collide in a programme that moves seamlessly from nightlife to reflection, and from protest to pure joy.

Amsterdam doesn’t really do Pride quietly – and thank goodness for that. With the final countdown to WorldPride underway, the city is preparing to open itself as a global stage for visibility, protest, celebration and joy all at once. In a world where queer rights are still being fought for, rolled back or questioned in too many places, that matters more than ever.

WorldPride in Amsterdam isn’t just about the canals turning into a floating parade of colour (although, let’s be honest, what’s not to love about that?). It’s about remembering that Pride began as a protest and still carries that pulse today – while also making space for joy, flirtation, artistry, community and a kind of togetherness you can’t really manufacture at any other time of year.

Right in the cultural heart of the city, Avani Museum Quarter Amsterdam is leaning into that spirit: Pride as something you live rather than observe. As part of Avani Hotels & Resorts’ “All Pride, No Pause” platform, the hotel becomes a gathering point where literature, performance and nightlife don’t sit in separate boxes – they spill into one another, just like the city itself during WorldPride.

So what’s the headline act for WorldPride Amsterdam with Avani? The Drag Disco Bingo Show, of course. Think glitter, basslines, lashes sharp enough to cut glass and a room full of people who come ready to play. Hosted by Amsterdam-based entertainer and content creator Gio Diekema, with very special appearances from Dutch drag icons Miss Icy and Vanessa Van Cartier, the night promises the kind of joyful chaos only drag can properly orchestrate. Disco meets bingo, performance meets audience, and somewhere between the numbers being called and the music dropping, it becomes something else entirely – a shared celebration of being exactly who you are.

But WorldPride Amsterdam at Avani isn’t only about nightlife. There is a quieter, more reflective layer too – because Pride is never just about the dancefloor.

The Avani Book Club, a global initiative across all Avani properties, turns reading into a shared act of storytelling. Guests can borrow curated titles – both international and Amsterdam-specific – read them during their stay and leave them behind for the next traveller. It’s a simple, delightfully retro concept: stories passed hand to hand, stay to stay.

Then there’s The Swap Club collaboration: a themed evening of poetry writing followed by a conversation on inclusivity in queer literature. Less panel discussion, more pull up a chair and tell us what you think.

Together, these moments shape a broader programme rooted in culture, community and queer joy. It is not about ticking boxes – it is about building atmosphere. A sense that Pride doesn’t only live along the parade route, but in hotel lobbies, in ongoing conversations and in shared stories long after WorldPride has moved on.

Across the wider Avani Pride programme, the energy stretches far beyond the Netherlands. In Bangkok, Thailand, a colourful community fun-run was held through the city, followed by a rooftop recovery session set to music and nightlife-led celebrations that turned self-expression into a full-body experience, marking the city’s fast-growing Pride movement. In Madrid, Spain, Pride is rooted in neighbourhood connection, parade access and after-dark gatherings in one of Europe’s most iconic LGBTQ+ districts – placing guests inside the city’s rhythm rather than observing from the edges.

We love that each city tells the same story in a different dialect: Pride as lived experience – local, community-driven and powerful.

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Photography courtesy of Avani Hotels & Resorts