Turnhout launches new LGBTQ+ city festival: “We want to create a safe, vibrant place where everyone can be themselves”

Turnhout is filling its streets with rainbow colors as the city hosts its first LGBTQ+ festival, Love Out Loud. The event offers performances and activities free of charge.

The organizers describe it as a meeting point for music, LGBTQ+ visibility and social connection. They say they want to create a warm, inclusive event that reaches beyond a conventional concert venue and remains accessible to everyone.

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We want to create a safe and vibrant place where everyone can be themselves. It was simply time for something to happen in Turnhout.

"We want to create a safe and vibrant place where everyone can be themselves. It was simply time for something to happen in Turnhout," the organizers said. They pointed to Pride events in Antwerp, Limburg, Liège, Ghent, Leuven and Mechelen, but said the Kempen region and Turnhout had never hosted something similar.

The festival includes Sensoa, which is running a mobile HIV testing station, as well as the House of Human Rights, Pride Limburg and Turnhout's prevention service. Music and other entertainment are also part of the program, followed by an afterparty in central Turnhout after midnight.

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I think Pride is not only something for the big cities. Here too, we have a community that deserves a festival or a Pride.