Pride in Brighton & Hove 2010/2011



	BRIGHTON PRIDE 2010 / 2011

market

Two weeks after the 2009 event, Brighton Pride announced it had a potential £50,000 deficit and was launching a drive to raise these funds.

At the end of September, it opened the tender process for the production contract for 2010-2012. A week later it had a public meeting and announced that because of its deficit, it may have to downscale the event, and that it was having an 'internal root and branch rethink' two weeks later to discuss exactly what would be happening.

At no time did the organisation officially inform any of the tenderers that this was happening.

At the end of October - the day the tenders were due in - Brighton Pride released plans to downscale the festival we have grown to love, losing the Wild Fruit tent, the Cabaret tent, Calabash tent, Women's tent, Popstarz tent, Girls tent and funfair, and replacing them with a 'performance tent', 'music tent' and an 'arts/cultural tent'.

Quite simply, this would change the event beyond all recognition. Added to the fact that Brighton Pride still did not know how it would fund this event, Wilde Ones found itself in the position where it was impossible to tender for it.

Shortly after this announcement a Facebook group 'Save Brighton Pride As We Know It' was set up in opposition to these plans, and over 2000 people joined within the space of one week. The members now number over 6000.

As a result, Wilde Ones proposed a rescue plan for the event - 'Brighton Pride Rescue Plan' - in which we would keep all the attractions that have made Brighton Pride the fantastic event it is, and take all the financial risk away from Brighton Pride itself.

Brighton Pride did not discuss this option with us and appointed a new production company to run the event.

However, because of the public support for keeping the previous attractions (via the ‘Save Brighton Pride As We Know It’ Facebook page), Wilde Ones worked on the idea of a Pride after-party to take place on Madeira Drive

This would have been a commercial dance event to run from 4pm until midnight on the Saturday, and all day on the Sunday. Unfortunately, this proposal fell at the first hurdle. Despite the ticket price of £10 on the Saturday, Brighton & Hove City Council saw the event as a rival to the ‘official’ Brighton Pride and refused to allow it to happen, stating that they did not have the will nor the resources to cover both events.

Wilde Ones has tried every way it can to provide the LGBT community of Brighton & Hove with an event for 2010 that includes all of the attractions the community has grown to love over the previous 10 years. Unfortunately our offers have been refused every step of the way.

We are extremely disappointed but we can do no more. However, we would like to thank everybody who has supported the rescue plan, as well everyone who voted for us in the RealBrighton straw poll. We greatly appreciate it."

For more information read the following links from Brighton gay magazine Gscene, local Brighton mainstream newspaper The Argus and website RealBrighton.com:

Aug 14th
Brighton Pride Bosses reveal £50K cash crisis

September 26th
Brighton Pride forced to cut staff

September 28th
Shaky start for Pride fundraising

October 7th
Fears of cutting back on Pride

October 30th
Brighton Pride unveils radical overhaul

Nov 4th
Pride to cut main attractions at Pride

Nov 9th
Pride to prune park

Nov 10th
Anger at Pride's proposals to axe the main attractions from Preston Park in 2010