Pride London

The tradition & historical record

Pride in London is an annual LGBTQ+ pride festival and pride parade held each summer in London, England. The event, formerly run by Pride London, is sometimes referred to as London Pride. Pride in London celebrates the diversity of LGBTQ+ communities with the Pride in London Parade, as well as free events that take place in Trafalgar Square and other areas in central London. This event aims to bring together people of all genders, ethnicities, sexualities, and races. Pride in London is among the longest running pride festivals in the United Kingdom. In recent years, the event has included more than 35,000 participants representing over 500 groups, and has attracted an estimated 1.5 million attendees. The festival's programme and route vary annually, with events held at different locations across London. ¹

The UK's first public gay pride event took place in November 1970, with around 150 men walking through Highbury Fields in North London. The first official pride march was held in London two years later, with approximately 200 participants; it was held on 1 July 1972 coinciding with the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots of 1969. In 1971, the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) youth group organised an age of consent rally in London. In 1981, the Pride march and rally were relocated from London to Huddersfield as an act of solidarity with the Yorkshire gay community who were facing harassment by the West Yorkshire Police. The harassment consisted of police surveillance and repeated raids of the popular Gemini Club which the police referred to as a "cesspit of filth". In 1985, representatives from mining groups joined the Lesbians and Gays Support the Miners group (LGSM) on the march. This was in recognition of the support given to striking miners by LGSM. In 1988, the controversial Section 28 led to increased attendance to the march in protest. Since 1983, the march had been called "Lesbian and Gay Pride" and by the 1990s it became more of a carnival event, with large park gatherings and a fair after the marches. In 1996, following a vote by the members of the Pride Trust, the event was renamed "Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Pride" and became the largest free music festival in Europe. In 1992, London was selected to hold the first EuroPride event with attendance put at 100,000. ¹

'Pride London' was formed in 2004, and was awarded registered charity status. Since then, 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 the Big Gay Out music festival in Finsbury Park in 2004, and in 2006 'Drag Idol' in Leicester Square, a women's stage in Soho and a party in Soho Square. ¹

At an October 2008 conference in Vancouver, InterPride accepted a bid from Pride London to host WorldPride 2012. Running from 23rd June to 8th July (with the parade on the 7th July), this was to coincide with the London Olympic and Paralympic Games, and the 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, a major sponsor withdrew support, leading to the charity being unable to raise the funds necessary. Consequently, the entertainment and stages were all cut, and licence applications for street parties in Soho were withdrawn. Instead, the event plans included a Pride Walk (without floats or vehicles) and a scaled-back rally in Trafalgar Square. During this event, the first International Asexual Conference was held. On 5 July, the Metropolitan Police issued a licence regulations notice to all venues in Soho, reminding them that Pride London now has no licence for street events in the Soho area, and therefore, venues should treat WorldPride as "any normal day". This led to the closure of the Pride London charity in the days which followed the 2012 event. ¹

In October 2012, a group of individuals from within the LGBTQ community formed London LGBT+ Community Pride, a registered community interest company. After a bidding process organised by the Mayor of London in October 2012, the London LGBT+ Community Pride was awarded a five-year contract and a grant worth £650,000 (or £500,000) in January by the Greater London Authority to deliver the annual pride celebrations within London. Since then, they have continued to organise and expand the Pride in London event each year. The event hosts a range of stages during the event. In 2018, the event saw 4 stages hosted in Trafalgar Square, Leicester Square and Soho. Some years there would be an official London Pride song. In 2019, for example, this was Dance Like Nobody's watching by Finnish singer Saara Aalto. ¹

The 2020 parade (titled #YouMeUsWe) was scheduled for 27 June 2020. In March 2020, it was postponed, with no new date announced, due to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, Gay rights activists from Clapham arranged a gathering on Clapham Common to celebrate Pride 2020. This gathering turned into a large party with pop-up performances, temporary tattoos, sing-alongs and rainbow flags. It was penned by BBC News as an illegal rave and was shut down by police at 11pm. There were no arrests. On 26 February 2021, it was announced that Pride in London would be going ahead on the weekend of 11 September 2021. In August 2021, the event was cancelled in full due to COVID-19, stating that final risk assessments would not allow the parade to be held. This is despite the lifting of most COVID-19 restrictions in England. ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Pride in London”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

Pride London is annual LGBT pride festival and parade, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 4 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²