Brighton Pride has set out ambitious plans to expand by taking over Preston Park for two consecutive weekends.
The organisers hope to spread their costs by hosting standalone events over the first weekend which would not be part of the Pride festival.
They have also pledged to review the wristband scheme for the Pride Village Party, in Kemp Town, after a series of complaints and criticisms.
And a newly published report said that Brighton and Hove City Council aimed to recover all of its estimated £100,000 annual costs from 2026 onwards.
The report to councillors said that, across the weekend, Pride brought £20 million into the local economy from visitors and had contributed more than £1.2 million to charities and community groups.
Councillors are being asked to grant “landlord’s consent” for the next five years for the parade, activities in Preston Park and the Pride Village Party, in Kemp Town.
They are also being asked to allow Brighton Pride CIC to use Preston Park for an extra weekend each year – in principle and subject to community consultation.
The report said: “From 2025, Brighton Pride is proposing a new vision working with Brighton and Hove City Council to develop events over two weekends starting at the end of July and concluding on the first full weekend in August.
“The traditional Pride Saturday will still fall on the first weekend of August, with the other dates being programmed to offer a full line-up of Friday, Saturday and Sunday performances and sharing the significant overall infrastructure costs with other event partners.
“The additional weekend, managed by Brighton Pride as a mechanism to reduce financial risk, will not be part of the city Pride celebrations and will be independently branded and promoted.
“It will create an income for Pride to support their longer-term sustainability.”
The proposal includes leaving the tents and infrastructure from the opening weekend in place for the second weekend including the day of the annual Pride parade.
Brighton Pride said that it planned to explore a programme of midweek community activities for children and young people, such as circus skills workshops and children’s shows.
The organisers have also pledged to review the wristband system used to grant admission to the Pride Village Party which takes over several streets in Kemp Town each year.
The report to councillors said that since the wristband scheme was introduced in 2014, demand had risen 300 per cent, adding: “This continues to be an unpopular measure with some business owners and residents.”
Limits on wristbands for people living, working and staying in the area have prompted numerous complaints and criticisms including at a recent council meeting.
Brighton Pride also said that it would “review the current footprint” of the Pride Village Party, with Old Steine Gardens and Madeira Drive under consideration.
The report to councillors said that Pride would be expected to cover a greater share of the council’s £100,000 a year costs over the coming years, funding the entire amount by 2026.
This would be made more likely with landlord’s consent for five years, enabling Brighton Pride Community Interest Company to secure multi-year contracts and sponsorship.
The decision is due to be taken at a special meeting of the council’s Culture, Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Economic Development Committee at Hove Town Hall.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 2.30pm next Friday (8 December) and to be webcast on the council’s website.
As someone who lived opposite the park for 20+ years this just fills me with dread. One is already too much.
And its not just one week. the wall is there about a week early and gets left there. park run gets stopped, all the circus skills people get pushed out, and people cant walk their dogs. Its a private event it should use private land
God no. It’s already extremely disruptive also dragging it out over two weekends is just a money grab and a nightmare for residents like me.
Totally agree. Residents and many business owners in the 21 streets in Kemptown where this takes place absolutely dread this event as well. We need a referendum on whether these events should continue to take place at all and not a 5 year event vote on an expansion plan from the council.
Sounds ambitious, and that they are listening to concerns.
Brighton is rapidly becoming the place to be in the country for spring/summer festivals, from May through to September.
Since it’s only for one of the letters of the LGBTQ community now because the rest of us are no longer in vogue, surely it can get a lot smaller again.
There is a T pride as well, but if you blink you will miss it.
Let us use some of the public PARK. The massive wall, every year taking more and more of the PARK away from the people who use it all year, feels opprossive. A big BERLIN WALL around our play space. Reserved for people who stump up 80 quid. GO AWAY LEAVE US ALONE.
Why on earth when the council is claiming it is has serious financial problems is it proposing to give £100,000 to a private event company. Instead of giving £1.2m to charities perhaps Pride can give £1.1 million to charities and pay for this private event themselves.
They do
They already do.
They give them MONEY? Why? So that the residents can be locked out of the PARK and have a massive BERLIN WALL put up to OPPRESSES anyone who simply wants to use the public space? This is horrible. I am beginning to feel like its a gay mafia bullying ordinary people.
It’s too big already,
When I moved here in 2015 it was the parade, the park on Saturday and the street party.
Then the Sunday in the park was added and then various events in Victoria and Old Stein Gardens.
Now they want another weekend as well?
Someone needs to take a hard look at Pride and how it’s organised. Not only things like booking fees but also the compulsory ‘donation’ that gets added to every ticket you buy not once per booking.
Any review of the wrist band system needs to take place before approval is given for future events otherwise Pride will just not do it.
Why are we subsidising what is to all intent and purposes a private business ?
I’m surprised at the negative comments here, some of which are factually untrue.
The Pride Festival is not to everyone’s taste, but many residents welcome it as one of Brighton’s unique attractions, and all local businesses benefit from the influx of people who pack out hotels and restaurants for that weekend, and who spend even more money in our shops, pubs and bars.
Some of the pubs say they would not be here for the rest of the year were it not for the windfall of extra cash on Pride weekend.
The Pride festival also raises as lot of money which goes to charitable causes in our city, distributed via the Rainbow Fund.
Pride is also very well organised, and the clean up operation following Pride day itself, and after the street parties, is remarkably efficient and fast.
It is therefore good they are now asking where the Pride festival goes next, and it’s an obvious idea to spread the set up costs of the festival staging and fencing over two weekends. The extra performance days would mean different line ups could be held on the second weekend, suiting different crowds and catering for differing musical tastes. No-one is proposing a street party or beer fest which goes on for ten days.
The advantage of a ten day festival would be to encourage longer visits, and there would be more week-long hotel bookings rather than just for the one weekend. The day trippers would also be spread over a longer period. Local shops and restaurants would also benefit from the extended visitor footfall, and so on.
So the economic decision is really about how our biggest money-spinning weekend of the year might be extended to help the city economy further.
But, for sure, the neighbourhoods most affected need to be consulted on this.
Let’s hope the council can separate the usual anti gay, homophobic, and anti-youth and anti-fun sentiment – as displayed in these comments – from a common sense and economic approach in their decision making.
The local economy – including many jobs – is still dependent on hospitality and tourism, and so Brighton and Hove needs annual events like these.
If the vocal moaners and NIMBYs get their way then, in the longer term, we’ll just see more shops and pubs closing down.
In August most tourism businesses are packed regardless so they don’t need this extra revenue and this just displaces other tourists. This event should be scaled right back and not expanded to the size to a size in which it can survive financially in its own right without grant money and pay the commercial rate for spaces it uses as council tax just like other private companies have to. People are not sick of this event because they are homophobic they are sick of it as it has become too big and last year they in effect stole money off residents and businesses in 21 streets in Kemptown by making them pay for access to their houses, flats and businesses. At the moment it seems that a private company is making lots of money and there is no advantage but plenty of cost and disruption to residents of this event.
Your opening sentence is not correct. The rest is just your opinion, and one not shared by most people.
To get our facts straight, Pride is also a community based, not-for-profit, company, and St James’s street is not technically in Kemp Town.
The St James’s Street street party is indeed one of the problem areas, and each year the arrangements are tweaked to see how that improves things. But it goes ahead there because the majority of businesses want it to happen, as a community event.
As it happens, until recently I lived within the street party area, and I and most of my neighbours were happy for it to happen, given the limited time frame which covers just two evenings.
I see your ultimate argument is that everybody comment in annoyance on this proposed (cough) change are “the usual anti gay, homophobic, and anti-youth and anti-fun”. NO WE ARE NOT!
Some of us have to live cheek-by-jowel with this event and some of us are now utterly fed up with it ruining our lives for two weeks or more already. People have now started to go away for the event because its got so disruptive and believe me when I tell you that a great many of my LGBTQ friends think it’s run it course and become nothing more than a straight p&ss-up.
I actually had Paul Kemp ask me “what can we do to bring you back to the event” after I told him I used to support and enjoy it but it had now become something that myself and a huge number of other people dreaded every year.
Just because people have had enough of Pride and their hold over the Council does not mean they are anti gay, homophobic, and anti-youth and anti-fun.
Hi Tony, thanks for replying.
If you re-read what I wrote, I certainly don’t think everyone complaining about Pride is homophobic, or anti-fun, but some of the comments here are, or else a combination of being anti-events for various other reasons.
When part of any festival is right on your doorstep, then of course you might not like it, and I certainly mentioned that those in the neighbourhood should be consulted. It’s then up to the council to decide whether a public park can be used for a city festival, or whether that space remains the private domain of those local residents nearest to it.
My key argument is that we should not be selfish just because we find an event not to our liking – when those short-lived annual events are the life blood of a tourist-based economy.
There is also a lot of misinformation about the street party access issue, which most people were happy with after a lot of changes were made for this year. For example, the shops had full access this year for Saturday shoppers, before the road got closed off for the evening.
That doesn’t mean that further improvements can’t be made, and one question seems to be whether air b’n’b guests staying within the street party area should have unlimited free wristbands.
Obviously, as a gay man myself, I too have LGBTQ+ friends who think Pride is now too big, or too straight, or too much of a p*ss up. But to be honest that’s mostly an ageing thing, like when you get to 35 and suddenly realise you don’t like loud music anymore. I myself don’t enjoy the Village Street Party, mostly because the pub I usually go to for a quiet pint gets full of people, and I feel that my personal space has been invaded. But I also realise that the Pride weekend bar take boost is what allows that same pub to stay open the rest of the year – for me and others like me.
What I do love about Pride weekend, is the happy smiles you see on people’s faces throughout the city. The fun is so infectious! And the stage show in the park is usually pretty good.
My own first Pride march was back in 1976, but I haven’t forgotten the freedom I felt for the first time as a bi-sexual or gay man, being surrounded by so many others just like me. That feeling is the same today for a new generation, and the last thing we must do is to take Pride away from them.
Im sorry but when you have no choice but to live with Pride on your doorstep, it is too much. @0 years ago I bought a place opposite Preston Park in the knowledge it was an event space and in actual fact, viewed the property on the Friday before Pride. At that time Pride was a one day event with minimal setup and de-rig. There were other events, but not very many. Since then, Pride has grown to encompass two days with zero consultation with the local residents.
There is actually over a weeks worth of build up to the event – heavy truck movements, incessant noise from the forklifts putting up fence panels. From the Thursday oinwards you have generators and chiller units running all night for the bars. Literally 50ft from your bedroom window. On the Friday residents are denied sleep until the security barriers have been installed (this starts at 1am). The Saturday event results in the road being closed for the entire day and you are unable to think with the music and fairground. You can’t utilise your vehicle because the road is closed to traffic. The Saturday night is no sleep due to the noise going on overnight to prepare the Park for the Sunday. Then you have the event on the Sunday which doesn’t finish at 21.30, but carries on until well into the early hours with de-rig and heavy equipment. Then you have the cleanup operation……
Many people in the area are literally forced out of their homes for the weekend at considerable cost in some cases. Sounds dramatic doesn’t it, and I can assure you it is. If I stayed in my property on the Sunday night, I would be unable to get up for work the next morning. Why should people have to move out of their properties to carry on their normal lives? It’s unacceptable to run this event in the manner it is currently, let alone extend it for two weekends as this would effectivly result in THREE weeks of disturbance for residents. You also have to take into account that the Council saw fit to run EIGHT other events effectively back to back in the Park over the summer 2023 season.
This of course is just one part of the city. Talk to people in the StJames area and they will have stories of their own.
Pride is about inclusion. How ironic then that it actually alienates and grossly inconveniences a section of the population? You talk about “smiling faces” – why should they be produced at the expense of others?
The very essence of what Pride stands for is being errored.
The whole event just needs to be moved to a private event space. This started off as a small pleasant event and it has become a monstrous and growing nightmare in which every year the Pride organisers just try and take a bit more from us. Twenty one streets in Kemptown have been turned into a private event space which we don’t want and we get nothing but grief from pride over. How dare they tell us who we can have going into our properties. These 21 streets are not the Brighton Centre which they have paid to rent they are the locations of our homes and our businesses.
Charging people who have nothing to do with the event to enter a Public Street to visit a businesses is taking the urine and I will challenge any moron again who wishes to deny me access.
And charging people to enter a park to which we residents already contribute in our council tax is also disgraceful. The whole thing has become one enormous money grabbing item on the B&H calendar, and should definitely be cut back., not extended. And the biggest crime is the way residents in the St James Street area are treated like aliens. When this was just a parade and a day at Preston Park for all to enjoy free of charge, it was great. Now it is an absurd expensive monstrosity, and a bloody nuisance.
It puts the wall up at least a week early and takes at least a week to take it down. Is this because pride wants to save MONEY and blocks everyone else from OUR public space? By doing this you are creating resentment. Not peace and love.
I fully support Pride and I now think its time it should move out of Preston Park, its outgrown the space. It should relocate to East Brighton Park.
Yeah its causing resentment. A gay person I know, who uses the park, but does not attend pride,, even termed the pride event as bastards on seeing the massive wall put up so early and taking up so much of the park.
I though there was a report that the wristbans for kemptown were illegal with regards to the Road Traffic Act
Some people think the wristbands are illegal and that’s what the article on here said.
Only a court can decide if the scheme is or isn’t illegal and someone needs to take the council and pride to court for a judge to decide.
The article here makes it clear that the wristband issue is being reviewed:
“The organisers hope to spread their costs by hosting standalone events over the first weekend which would not be part of the Pride festival.
They have also pledged to review the wristband scheme for the Pride Village Party, in Kemp Town, after a series of complaints and criticisms.”
But if you live in Brighton you should know that St James’s street is not actually in ‘Kemp Town’.
This is a definite no-no, and that’s the end of all discussion. What’s happened to the Hippodrome plans which laughably are in question because of traffic concerns? What about these proposals? They also don’t add up to complaints about Pavilion gardens plans. Brighton is the pits and the council is leading the way. If pride can’t cover their costs now the whole charade should be cancelled. Preston Park out of bounds for a whole month to the people of Brighton, I won’t say Brightonians because they’ve long gone. Never vote Labour.
“end of all discussion”? So you want to close down discussion on the city’s biggest money spinner?
What a stupid response from a typical Tory knee-jerk Daily Mail reader.
Did you actually read the article?
(And if you live in Patcham, then Pride doesn’t actually affect you very much – beyond providing some fun weekend event to go to. )
There’s no either/or discussion here and, correcting your obvious prejudice, Pride can clearly cover its costs.
Pride brings huge financial benefits to the city and the council has traditionally supported it with funding for the infrastructure – because of the obvious financial benefits for the city in terms of visitor numbers. The council has traditionally supported many other events in exactly the same way.
That support has, of course, changed over the years, and for the last decade Pride have willingly had to pay for all their event fencing, the cleaning, and some of the policing.
The council are now, with financial prudence, looking to reduce the limited financial support they still give to an event that is very well organised.
In turn, the Pride organisers are coming up with new proposals about how they can be better, in organising a broad-interest festival for the city that spans two weekends.
The final decision (for 2025?) will be made by the council, hopefully weighing up what the overall benefits for the city are – as would any colour council, be that Red, inept Green, or knee-jerk Blue.
It’s weird how the term Pride – or Gay Pride – seems to prevent people reading what is being said, and how those words cloud judgment over what has yet to be decided.
This event is in August and simply displaces other tourists who also bring economic benefit to the city but frankly put a lot less pressure on the city. I can appreciate that there are a few businesses that sell alchohol in Kemptown though that do see extra benefit. However, an event like this should be give and take. They should pay the council a commercial rate for use of the public spaces and the terms on which they operate should be controlled so the event is not a complete headache for residents. The number of these types of events should also be limited so no area has to put up with too many a year. At the moment we have the situation that council taxpayers subsidise this event and also have to put up with the aggro caused by it. Each year they take more and more and there has to come a stage when the council says enough is enough.
If we took your rather naive view, then we should also close the beach on busy weekends and Bank Holidays.
Imagine how much less cleaning there would be and traffic flow would be much easier.
And never mind the lost revenue to hotels, bars and restaurants, and from parking charges.
Never mind the loss of jobs in the hospitality industry.
Visitors are such a nuisance, aren’t they? (Until you bother to calculate their net contribution to the city economy).
It’s also interesting that you still think of August as a busy month in Brighton – when the conferences and indoor concerts don’t generally happen, the hotels and restaurants are usually under booked, and the student tidal flow is at its lowest ebb.
Residents in the areas directly impacted lose the basic human right to sleep for (currently) TWO WEEKS. Local Residents are unable to access their premises, move vehicles, basically just live their lives as a direct result of this event. Now Pride want to expand it. I don’t think so……..
Anyone who disagrees with you is a ‘daily mail ‘ reader. OH right. And your massive BERLIN WALL put up a week early and generally taken down a WEEK late is in the name of inclusivity? Sounds like a money making scam with the ‘gay rights or you are a homophobe’ pistol held to anyones head who disagrees.
It appears the consultation with communities most affected will take place after the decision in principal has been taken.
This means these communities actually have no say regarding the actual request and being labelled as local moaners and NIMBYs if they wish to raise objections or concerns regarding the impact of additional performances and events in the future.
I couldn’t agree more. I’ve complained about Pride online previously and been called a homophobe just because I have the temerity to suggest its outgrown itself. Pride pretend to listen to residents concerns and then ignore them. Nothing will change……..
There was a meeting at the beginning of October in the Cricket Pavilion, hosted by Ian Baird, Brighton & Hove Outdoor Events Development Manager to hear residents feedback on this years events in Preston park.
The meeting was attended by two members of the Pride Management Team, most notably Paul Kemp, local councillors and members of the public.
Unfortunately, the meeting was very poorly publicised and the location was (conveniently?), vague. As a result very few residents attended.
During the meeting, it was clear that people were utterly fed up of the noise and inconvenience of the almost constant events taking place during the summer months (nine weekends in a row in 2023) and that a rethink was very much in order to reduce the impact to local residents, some of whom live very close to Preston Park itself. As one of the main events spaces in the City, residents understand it is important that it’s well used, however it has now gone beyond what most would regard as reasonable.
During the meeting, Pride made the right noises – quite conciliatory, however as usual, they rode roughshod over residents concerns by stating on a number of occasions that the event brought a lot of money into the town. This is undoubtedly the case, but they seem to think that’s a fine justification for the increase of Pride to two days and seem not to understand that this is actually now a two week event when the buildup and breakdown and cleanup is taken into account. The generators, lighting, truck movements, forklifts etc, not to mention the funfair and event noise itself are conveniently overlooked.
Now this new story has been posted which suggests that they completely ignored any and all objections of the local residents and are intent on expanding the event even further.
This news impact local residents in St James Street and surrounding areas too.
This news leave very little time to lodge objections as a decision will be made by the Council on Friday 8th December!
Theres a meeting 5-7 on Dec 4th at C2 for residents and businesses of the Kemp Town area to discuss the impact of PVP
As I stated previously; Pride is about inclusion. How ironic then that it actually alienates and grossly inconveniences a section of the population?
Paul Kent and his team have rode roughshod over the concerns of residents for years. It’s all about money. The argument goes “Pride brings in millions sits worth a bit of inconvenience to the residents” Oh don’t get me wrong, they talk the talk and pay lip service to residents concerns, but in reality, the show must go on. This is also the view of B&HCC – “we can deal with a few complaints”
The very essence of what Pride stands for is being erroded in the name of money.
Very inclusive MASSIVE BERLIN WALL!