Tuesday, 7th August 07

Brighton Pride encouraged over 150,000 to celebrate LGBT diversity in the city over the weekend. An estimated £7.5 million additional revenue was brought to the city’s hotels, restaurants, bars and shops. The charity encourages all city businesses that benefited from the event to support both financially and in kind in order for Pride activities to continue. Companies can support Pride in a number of ways such as donating via www.brightonpride.org, sending donations directly to the Pride office, providing ‘in kind’ support or sponsoring the coming Winter Festival or the 2008 Summer Festival. Please contact the Pride Office for further information.

In order to meet some of this years costs, Pride was financially supported by local LGBT businesses, Brighton and Hove City Council and sponsors that included Wild Fruit, Barclays, Unison, Revenge, Southern, United, Metrobus, Gaydar, 3 Mobile and Brighton Pier. Additional support was provided by Yo!Sushi, Greggs, Sip water and HQ to feed Pride’s army of fantastic volunteers who worked tirelessly throughout the event.

Preston Park is already almost back to pristine condition thanks to William Cole Amusements who have undertaken the massive clear-up and recycling operation. On the down side, the amount of toilets provided proved inadequate for the increased numbers that attended the event this year. Despite increasing toilet provision considerably from last year and planning a very robust scheme to improve both queuing and emptying, it is very evident that at least many more toilets will have to be provided next year. This could cost the charity in excess of £40,000. The charity would welcome support for this from any businesses that can help with this particular resource.

Every year, the charity is always overwhelmed by the incredible support it receives from the statutory authorities and this year was no exception. Brighton and Hove City Council pulled out all the stops as did Sussex Police who went over and beyond their duties. Pride contractors worked together as they never have before with Select Stewarding and Security, St John Ambulance, Atec Security, William Cole and Arena Entertainment providing the best support team any festival could ever want. However, it was Wilde Ones who really excelled. Despite the death of their director, Paul Wilde, back in February, Wilde Ones under the control of Dean Parker proved once again they really can ‘make things happen’. It took a week to erect the infrastructure and another four days to ‘strike’ the event at a cost of over £230,000 for the hire of marquees, big tops, toilets, power, providing stewarding, first aid, security, production and health and safety.

The Parade this year was the most colourful and biggest to date. Volunteer stewards worked alongside Select personnel to make the Parade the safest yet. Financial support from the Arts Council and Brighton and Hove City Council enabled Same Sky to work their magic once again to support local LGBT groups and charities create the most wonderful floats and walking tablets representing nearly every well know musical. With Pride providing this platform in addition to the vast amount of space in the Park dedicated to the voluntary sector, many groups increased their profile and raised much needed awareness funds for their services.

The Festival started on Saturday 28th July with over 70 events in the city throughout the week. This year saw the festival boosted with more art exhibitions, comedy, sports and film nights in addition to many pub and club events. Nearly every LGBT business raised thousands for the charity and Pride, once again, grant funded many local LGBT groups to run their own events to help with their own fundraising. It has become very apparent that many visitors now visit the city for the whole week and the festival has encouraged many of LGBT community to enjoy a very diverse offer of activities.

For anyone that attended Pride and wants to donate, you can still do so by texting 'DONATE’ to 82772. It costs £3 with at least £1.85 going to Pride or via the Pride website.