The city of Brighton and Hove sparkled with rainbow technicolour over the weekend of Saturday 1st and Sunday 2nd of August as Pride 2015 danced into town.
Marking the 25th Brighton Pride the event has grown almost beyond recognition and is now widely regarded as one of the largest (and best!) UK Pride events, celebrating the city’s vibrant lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans community.
Starting out as a small march in 1973 arranged by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front just seven years after the decriminalisation of homosexuality, Brighton Pride now attracts major sponsorship, A-List performers, including Fatboy Slim, Boy George, Alison Moyet and Paloma Faith and over 200,000 revellers all celebrating diversity and promoting equality.
The festivities begin with an all-singing, all-dancing Community Parade through the streets of Brighton on the Saturday morning, with celebrations continuing in Preston Park with a huge festival event. On the other side of town, The St James Street plays host to the city’s biggest and boldest street party, closed to the traffic all weekend.
This year the Community Parade excelled all expectations as the streets of Brighton & Hove filled with joyous participants in a riot of colour for the most spectacular parade to date.
Community groups, charities, businesses and supporters joined forces for a remarkable city-wide spectacular, filled with music, love and laughter. Lead by the uber-fabulous Pride Ambassadors Aneesa Chaudhry, David Raven, Danny Eade and Alice Denny soaring above the crowds on their own float, the Community Parade paved the way from Hove Lawns magically though the rainbow-bright city. Everything from the herds of wild animal costumes courtesy of ‘andwhatarts’ and ‘Mandinga Arts’ and samba dancers to the scores of charities and organisations representing the LGBT community via the Freedom To Live campaign placards, the Brighton Pride Community Parade ensured the city was wrapped in Pride rainbows, thrilling everyone it passed with its high-octane cocktail of celebrations and campaigning.
At the end of the rainbow parade laid Preston Park playing host to the official Brighton Pride Festival 2015. Delivering a world-class line-up, the Main Stage, which has become the jewel in Brighton Pride Festival’s crown entertained thousands with its spectacular and diverse mix of the world’s finest live music, performances, DJs, speakers and LGBT campaigning.
From the hip house of Hercules and Love Affair, the sensational live band of Ella Henderson, the Grammy award-winning sounds of Ms Dynamite, the chart topping sensation that is Foxes, the queen that is Mary Lambert, the divine dubz diva that is Tulisa, the brilliance of Bright Light Bright Light, the sunshine sounds of Blooms, the delightful Christopher Haul, Brighton’s Carnival Collective and the spelling binding performance of Luke Fincher to the unforgettable Electric Dreams finale from Eighties legends The Human League, the Main Stage line-up kept Pride-goers partying from noon till dusk.
Panti Bliss, Peter Tatchell, Spirited Films and BrightonPride25 ensured Pride’s campaign Freedom To Live remained a pivotal part of Pride Brighton’s Main Stage celebrations, reminding everyone as they celebrated how far we still have to go to ensure everyone around the globe has the Freedom To Live regardless of gender or sexuality.
Pride Brighton and Hove 2015 delivered a day to remember. A day where the people of Brighton shone bright together. A day where Sussex shined with Pride.