June is Pride month around the world, and to celebrate Sydney Opera House’s rich LGBTIQ+ history, the Box Office Lounge and Bennelong Passage are being transformed into an immersive exhibition that honours and celebrates the stories and contributions of local and international LGBTIQ+ luminaries.

Built on Tubowgule, a Gadigal meeting place for millennia, the Sydney Opera House has provided a stage for the conversations that matter. While the politicians argued among themselves about family values, we set to work creating the world we wanted to see, confident in the power of culture to bring us together. From those very first days, we put queer stories centre stage. Every voice was welcome and every voice was heard. From Les Girls to Bob Downe, Margaret Cho to Hannah Gadsby, Club Kooky to Club Swizzle, here was a platform for belonging and acceptance and community.

In 2018, the first Opera House Mardi Gras float was launched in the festival’s 40th anniversary parade, a nod to our enduring connection with the LGBTIQ+ communities of Sydney.

We’re deepening this connection every day, the doors forever open to our extended rainbow family of artists, audiences, visitors and staff.