Pride in the City Celebrates Record Numbers in Citywide Festival Takeover
Pride in the City, presented in partnership with Newcastle NE1, is celebrating success after welcoming record numbers to this year’s Northern Pride festival in a citywide takeover.
Following its move from the Town Moor, this weekend’s main events ran from Friday to Sunday, with tens of thousands of people participating in the array of entertainment across the city, from the Curious Arts Stage and the Family and Youth zone to the Market Village, Lumo Platform and the main arena at Times Square.
From the satellite events which started earlier in the month, to the main events and through visitors to the city this weekend, over 82,000 people engaged with the joy of pride, including those who were able to enjoy the buzz and the on-street entertainment from the sidelines. This year the event succeeded in creating a more accessible pride celebration for all and a huge nod to this year’s theme of ‘unapologetically visible’.
With the sun shining community members, allies, local people and businesses came together to fill the streets of Newcastle with a colourful message of hope for the annual March. Starting and ended at the Civic Centre this year’s March had over 16,500 participants.
Ste Dunn, Director of Northern Pride, said: “We’re overwhelmed by the success of this year’s celebrations. It’s been a pleasure to see individuality in all forms celebrated in so many ways. With this year’s theme, unapologetically visible, we set out to encourage past, present and future generations of the LGBTQIA+ community to be their most authentic selves in whatever way that manifests itself to best reflect their journey.
“As well as achieving our purpose to bring the LGBTQIA+ community together, we’re excited to review the data this week to show in more detail the economic impact the event has been able to drive, from the satellite events that led us to this weekend to the visitors to the city.
“A huge thank you to our partners, supporters, the local businesses, our creatives, performers and volunteers, who embraced pride to show their solidarity and support throughout. We couldn’t have done any of this without them.
“It was incredible to truly see Pride in all its manifestations across the city. From art and theatre to live performances, crafts and film screenings. With families, friends and strangers, able to experience Pride in the City in their own way across the packed programme of activities. All with one common call to action, to be “unapologetically visible”.
