It's widely known that Brazilians love to party. Actually, it's a proven fact that if it's free and there's music, Brazilians will flock there with bells on, and whistles too. Just look at the statistics: The Rolling Stones played a gig on Copacabana Beach some years ago to an audience of 1 million people, the second biggest gig in the world. That was only beaten by a Rod Stewart show, also in Copacabana, with 3.5 million. The Virada Cultural, a 24-hour cultural festival in São Paulo which I attended in May, was 4 million. So it's hardly a surprise that for the São Paulo Gay Parade, everyone's happy to join in the festivities. According to authorities, the road along which the parade happens accomodates 1 million people. That doesn't stop 4 million people going though.

The São Paulo Gay Parade happens on the Avenida Paulista, the largest avenue in São Paulo; like Oxford Street, only 3 times as wide. The 13 floats go along the avenue, each of them representing a different NGO or GLS group and each playing its own genre of electronic music, with the emphasis on house, techno, trance and electro. Riding the floats, one can see scantily clad men, women, and everything in between, dancing the hours away while a sea of punters follow closely behind, most of them probably wishing they had a little more space to breathe. But I suppose that's the price you pay for going to a street festival.

At the risk of contradicting myself, I was surprised to see how drunk and high most people seemed to be. Perhaps at the Virada Cultural it seemed more acceptable since it was over 24 hours and it started night, but to be slumped on a wall surrounded by a pool of your own vomit at 3pm really does seem too much. The thing is it wasn't just one or two, it was lots. My guess is these were the hedonists who had been partying since the night before and carried on until it was just too much; or they were teenagers (most probably the latter).

Contrary to my experiences at the Virada Cultural, it was a very short São Paulo Gay Parade for me. Whilst the Virada Cultural was spread out around the entire centre of São Paulo, thus accomodating 4 million people very well, a six-lane avenue was simply not wide enough that many people. We came via one of the side roads and arrived to see there wasn't even the slightest chance of going anywhere. The floats would invariably take a break near the corners of these side roads before moving on; above one of the floats, I saw a friend of mine, a DJ here in São Paulo who was about to start playing himself. He beckoned my friend and I to join him up there, amongst the lucky ones looking down upon all the revellers. We fought our way through the wall of people but, alas, we couldn't make it to the float. As it began to move down the avenue once again, we saw our chance of dancing in between a sweaty man in a sparkly-silver thong and Priscilla Queen of the Desert slowly slipping away.

We eventually decided to cut our losses and make our way home. As we walked past a slew of unconscious adolescents, I started thinking about what exactly the purpose of the Gay Parade was, at least here in São Paulo. All the floats had slogans such as "Say No to Homophobia" and there were volunteers near the front asking for anyone to sign petitions or write down email addresses, so evidently spreading their message was the main objective. But no one was paying attention to these slogans, even if they were being shouted at them, they were dancing and listening to the music. The dancers atop the floats demonstrated the pride of the gay community for not hiding its true colours, showing people they aren't afraid of being themselves, be it an S&M tranvestite or a man in a sparkly-silver thong. Yet these are perhaps stereotypes that they themselves are adhering to which I can't see helping the gay community all that much. I don't think any of these things should be stopped, people should feel free to express themselves however they wish, but if the idea of the Parade is to promote social consciousness as well have a party, then to me this doesn't seem the best way to do it. I would imagine that the majority of people will go home and go to work tomorrow without even thinking about issue of gay rights or to what degree they themselves may be homophobic.

One slightly different approach to the Gay Parade is London Gay Pride, which not only has its own parade but also lots of stages providing entertainment and political speakers across central London. Spreading social consciousness is at the heart of the event as much as the festivites are; people actually get to hear the message rather than having it shouted at them over 50 decibels of pumping techno. Perhaps São Paulo, which boasts one of the largest gay communities in the world, could follow London's example and turn a party that's too big for its own good into a socially-conscious event that will have a more lasting effect than a Monday morning hangover.

For anyone interested in heading along to London Gay Pride, it's happening on the 4th July. For more information visit http://www.pridelondon.org