Chichester Pride promises seven hours of fun and frolics

Stuart Burrows is one of the team of volunteers looking forward to delivering a special and inclusive day for the LGBT+ community and all their family and friends – and all their straight allies as well. The promise is “amazing activities, exhilarating performances and inspiring speakers plus a lively atmosphere that radiates positivity.”

In a short time, the event has become an established part of the Chichester calendar, Stuart is delighted to say – all part of a happy network.

“We have got a really nice relationship with the cathedral. We did our first ever Pride Evensong last year. We are also doing our third take-over at Pallant House Gallery as part of the Festival of Chichester this summer, and I would stress just how supportive the city and district councils have been towards us. It has been great. I only moved down to Chichester in March 2021. I've been here three years and I had some concerns moving out of London into a city which could be seen as a rather conservative city that might not embrace a gay couple but I was completely wrong. It has been quite the opposite!”

And that's the spirit that Chichester Pride taps into. The first Pride in the city was a digital Pride during the pandemic: “And then the first official Pride was held in May 2022 and I think from that first Pride we learned a lot of lessons. We didn't really have any experience of doing something like that before but we sold 1,200 tickets for the first event and we could have sold two or three hundred more. In 2023 we had more tickets and last year we sold 1,600 tickets. Our target was 2,000 and that's our target for this year as well.

“I think Pride is important in every town and city and village throughout the UK and throughout the whole world. We are there to celebrate the history of the LGBT plus community but we are also there to be visible and to celebrate that community together. It is about making people in areas where there might not be a lot of support feel that they are actually supported. The visibility is important in that respect, but it’s also about being a safe space where people can express themselves freely.

“Obviously everybody dreams of a utopia where everybody is free in terms of respect for their sexuality and their diversity and their freedom of expression but the fact is that there is still homophobia in the UK. And realistically we're never going to totally eradicate homophobia and prejudice, and that's why Prides are so important. In the UK, my lived experience is that we have become a much more positive place over the years. If I compare my experiences as a teenager and in my 20s when there were no gay role models on TV and when there was AIDS, I know there was a lot of fear and prejudice. And you think of now and you realise that things have come on a lot. But you can't really ever forget that prejudice exists, and again that's where Pride is important.”

Tickets www.chichesterpride.co.uk. Potential volunteers should also get in touch.