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LGBT Athens is preparing for a colourful Saturday and a "celebration of pride." The main message of the Pride will be "Take a Stand" to ensure full equality, justice, acceptance and respect for gays, lesbians, bisexuals and transsexuals, and each member of the Greek society.

The parade will include a message of protest against any manifestation of hatred, stigmatization and violence in response to the cases of racism in recent months, which have taken human lives.

Performances began at noon, with Face and Body Painting workshops using the colours of pride and preparation of posters carrying the messages that participants want to convey.

There will be DJ sets from 13:00 to 17:00, to keep the mood of the participants going, until the official guests come to deliver their addresses.

The temperature will go up at 18:00 and thereafter with the ZUMBA PARTY, where a group zumba instructors will give their guidance.

18:30 is the official start of the parade, and the march will start at 19:00 on the central streets of Athens.

Participants will then return to Klafthmonos square where the LIVE SHOW & PARTY of this year's Athens Pride will start at 21: 00.

For the first time there will be a toilet for disabled people in the square, and special parking spaces on one side of the square.

There will also be sign language translation for deaf people, as well as volunteers to help challenged people to the pavilions to the show venues or while participating in the parade.

"Athens Pride is a celebration. But the parade is a powerful political event as well, and its messages will be displayed on posters and panels. This year’s poster will call for the sensitization and mobilization of the part of the Greek society that turns its back on the LGBT community in Greece, and fails to protect its interests, values or rights.

In its impersonal, uniform indifference, these people are reminiscent of the ‘little men’ of the artist Yannis Gaitis (1923-1984), through which he vehemently criticised modern mass mentality.

Athens Pride supports the rights of all lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, it stands for free personal expression and emphasizes that it can only be achieved through everybody’s dynamic participation in the Pride.

We invite you to participate in this year's Pride of the LGBT community and of all other vulnerable groups in Greece. Your message written on a poster on Saturday, June 13, 2015, will make an appeal to the Greek society and the political, religious and cultural leadership of the country urging them to take a stand for a real democratic change," reads the organisers’ statement.