Pride London

Pride London 2008, the Main Stage in Trafalgar Square

Pride London is the name of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender registered charity which arranges LGBT events in London, most notably the annual gay pride parade which is held in June/July.

The most recent Pride London event WorldPride London 2012 was significantly "scaled back" nine days before the event was due to take place. Pride London had failed to secure the monies necessary for contractors of key areas of the work, and they announced that all activities were being cut or cancelled. The London Evening Standard reported that four contractors from the previous year's Pride event were owed £65,000 in unpaid debts, though this has been officially denied by Pride London.^[1]

Pride London is a registered charity.^[2] The organisation is run by volunteers (including the board of directors). The stated aim of Pride London is to produce a highly professional Pride Festival and an annual Pride Day comprising a Parade through central London, a politically based Rally and free entertainment in central London.

History

Pride has been organised by several organisations since the first official UK Gay Pride Rally which was held in London on the 1st July 1972 (chosen as the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots of 1969) with approximately 2000 participants.^[3][4] The first London gay marches were in November 1970 with 150 men walking through Highbury Fields in North London.^[5] The controversy of Section 28 from 1988 lead to numbers increasing on the march in protest. In 1983 the march was renamed "Lesbian and Gay Pride" and in the 1990s became more of a carnival event. There were large park gatherings and a fair after the marches up until 2003.^[5]

Pride London itself was formed in 2004. Since 2004 a political rally in Trafalgar Square has been held straight after the parade, and more recently Pride London has organised several other events in the centre of London on Pride Day including in 2006 'Drag Idol' in Leicester Square, a women's stage in Soho and a party in Soho Square. In 1992 London was selected to hold the first Europride with attendance put at 100,000,^[6] London again held Europride in 2006 with an estimated 600,000 participants. In 2004 it was awarded registered charity status.

2012 event was World Pride.^[7]

Parade

Pride London Parade 2008, the 100m rainbow flag

Large numbers of LGBT-friendly people (including a significant number of family, friends and supporters) from all walks of life take part in the parade. Since 1991, the Friends of Dorothy Society of Change Ringers have rung the bells of the church of St Martin in the Fields in Trafalgar Square during the morning of Pride, and as the parade passes through. For many the most iconic image is of a long rainbow flag, in 2006 this was carried by members of the Metro Centre. In 2010 it was jointly carried by EDF Energy and Tesco's staff network groups.

Since 2006 Regent Street and Oxford Street have been closed off to allow the parade to pass through. This is seen by many in the LGBT community as a sign of wider acceptance, although the parade once marched down Oxford Street illegally in protest in the 80s.

FFLAG group taking part in the Pride London parade 2011.

Groups who participate include The OutZone Youth Project for gay and bisexual young men, Mosaic LGBT Youth, Queer Youth Network (formally The Queer Youth Alliance), OutOnThursday, Metro Centre, Youth@Pride, The Pink Paper and Transport for London. Since 2004 the Mayor of London, both Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson have participated by walking part of the route with the rainbow flag.

Pride London Parade 2009 passing through Picadilly Circus

Volunteers

Pride London has a volunteer stewarding system for the parade which is used as an example by many other pride events. Every single person, including all directors and trusties are entirely voluntary. License conditions set by Westminster Council requires a minimum of 250 stewarding staff, which for 2011 consists of 50 Senior Stewards, who manage 5 teams of stewards. There are around 10 Area Managers currently, who generally work for the Operations Team of Pride London to plan the event.

All volunteers are rewarded with a Pride Privilege Card^[8] which businesses, mainly in the gay hub of London, Soho, provide a various number of rewards and discounts. The main sponsor of this Pride Privilege Card is Nandos.^[8]

The volunteering aspect is in two sections, Operations Team and The Board. The 'on the day' stewards and volunteers is as follows;

• Stewards - These volunteers wear yellow polo shirts and are a 5-6 people team
• Senior Stewards - These volunteers wear red polo shirts and manage the above 5-6 team
• Area Manager - These volunteers wear green polo shirts and generally manage between 1 and 4 of the above teams
• Deputy Chief Stewards - These volunteers wear navy blue polo shirts and generally manage between 2-5 of the area managers above
• Chief Steward - This person is officially in charge of all of the above

Generally those Area Manager and above work within the Operations Team of Pride London. This team meets throughout the year to make the parade happen. They work under the non-operational and non-logistical directive of The Board of Director and Trusties who each have an area of responsibility. Each member of the Operations Team also has an area of responsibility.

There are hundreds of people involved in making Pride London happen, however there is no available exhaustive list of persons involved.

Pride London Festival Fortnight

The Pride London Festival Fortnight started in 2006 when London hosted EuroPride. It re-emerged in 2009 as groundwork was laid for hosting World Pride in 2012.

In 2009 the festival opened with The Bad Film Club presenting Can't Stop the Music at the Prince Charles Cinema on Saturday 20 June. It closed on 5 July 2009 with a performance from the London Gay Symphony Orchestra.

The upcoming Pride London Festival Fortnight is on 17 June to 8 July 2012^[7] with details to be confirmed.

Sponsors and Partners

The headline sponsor for Pride London for 2011 and 2012 under a 2-year contract is Smirnoff. Other sponsors include TUC, Mayor of London, VroomVroomVroom.co.uk, Out at Tesco, Ku Bar, Fire and Coca-Cola GB.^[9]

Steward staff have, in 2010 and in preparation for 2011, wore lanyards bearing the Coca-Cola logo and in previous years have worn RMT lanyards. The Vitamin Water Company in previous years have been the sponsor. Their logo appeared on the right breast of the stewards t-shirts.

Nandos are currently sponsors of the Pride Privilege Cards given to volunteers who work with Pride London.^[8]

Patrons

Pride London has had several famous patrons including:

• Sir Elton John
• Sir Ian McKellen
• Lord Alli
• Chris Smith, Baron Smith of Finsbury
• Stephen Fry
• Rhona Cameron
• Michael Cashman MEP
• Peter Tatchell
• Wayne Sleep

Controversy

At Pride London 2011, a marcher carrying a Socialist Worker Party placard.

London Pride, has come under criticism from socialists within the LGBT community, for instance, Hannah Dee argues that it has reached "the point that London Pride - once a militant demonstration in commemoration of the Stonewall riots - has become a corporate-sponsored event far removed from any challenge to the ongoing injusticies that we [the LGBT community] face."^[10]

WorldPride London 2012

Part of the Pride Walk going past Trafalgar Square

The 27th annual conference of InterPride, held in October 2008 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, voted to accept the bid of Pride London to host WorldPride 2012 in the capital of the United Kingdom just ahead of the London Olympic and Paralympic Games and during the anticipated year-long celebrations of The Queen's Diamond Jubilee. Pride London planned a parade with floats, a large performance area in Trafalgar Square with street parties in Golden Square and Soho.

However, Londons' World Pride event was significantly "scaled back" at an emergency all-agencies meeting on 27 June 2012, nine days before the event was due to take place and after the festival fortnight had started. Pride London organisers had failed to secure the monies necessary for contractors of key areas of the work, and they announced that all activities were being cut or cancelled. The London Evening Standard reported that four contractors from the previous year's Pride event were owed £65,000 in unpaid debts, though this has been officially denied by Pride London.^[1] Consequently, the entertainment and stages were all cut, and license applications for street parties in Soho withdrawn. Instead, the event plans included a Pride Walk (without floats or vehicles), and a scaled-back rally in Trafalgar square.^[11] On 5 July, the Metropolitan Police issued a license regulations notice to all venues in Soho, reminding them that Pride London now has no license for street events in the Soho area, and therefore venues should treat WorldPride as "any normal day".^[12]

Peter Tatchell and former Pride London Associate Director James-J Walsh in an article for PinkNews criticised the management of Pride London's management of World Pride. Tatchell said "“Whatever the rights and wrongs, this scaling down of WorldPride is a huge embarrassment for London and for our LGBT community. We promised LGBT people world-wide a fabulous, spectacular event. It now looks like WorldPride in London will go down in history as a damp squib. We’re not only letting down LGBT people in Britain, we’re also betraying the trust and confidence of LGBT people world-wide. This is an absolute disaster.”. Walsh added "This will mar the work of Pride London for years to come. Pride London has lost the focus of being an LGBT campaigning organisation, instead focusing on partying rather than politics, which is what the community needs when legislation around equal marriage and LGBT rights are still to be won both in the UK and around the world."^[13]

As a result of the organisation's handling of the event, the Pride London chair, Dr Patrick Williams, stepped down three days before the march took place and the London Assembly launched an inquiry.^[14][15] Subsequently, a bidding process for non-profit community based organisations to submit bids to run and develop Pride in London was announced by the Mayor of London.^[16] The winning bidder, London LGBT+ Community Pride, was awarded the right to run London's main gay pride festival for five years on 18 January 2013.^[17]

See also

• Pride parade
• Gay Liberation Front

Footnotes

References

• Walton, Tony (2010), Out of the Shadows, Bona Street Press, ISBN 978-0-9566091-0-6 

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to Pride London.

• Official website
• Pride London Flickr Photostream
• Pride London Group on Guidetogay.com
• B.M.E. at Pride London
• London Gay Symphony Orchestra
• Pride 2010 Video 38m 56s

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