About London Pride

by **APE** 23/04/11, 02:46 am

About Gaypride london.

Pride London aims to promote equality and diversity through all of its campaigns.
ThePride London festival uses theatre, music, debate, art and entertainment to raise awareness of discrimination and the issues and difficulties affecting the lives of LGBT people around the world.
Our Parade is an explosion of Pride in the heart of the capital, attracting over 1,000,000 people in a celebration of diversity.

Through this we aim to promote a sentiment in favour of equality, uniting people in a celebrative atmosphere where all are welcome, and fostering a sense of community within the LGBT population.
Overall, Pride London hopes to promote understanding and cooperation, as well as education in diversity, in order to get rid of the discrimination faced by LGBT people.

As a registered charity, our work is enabled entirely by donations and sponsorship, and our events are organised and run solely by volunteers.
You can help make a difference to the lives of LGBT people and support Pride London at the same time by donating or volunteering.

history

Pride London was founded in March 2004, and was granted charitable status in July of that year.
In its first year, Pride London attracted a little over 30,000 peopleto central London for a parade and campaign rally in Trafalgar Square.
From this small beginning, Pride London has grown at a staggering rate into becoming one of the United Kingdom’s largest events, and the largest LGBT event that the United Kingdom has ever seen.

In 2005, Pride London expanded the event a cabaret stage in LeicesterSquare, and added more entertainment to the main stage on Trafalgar Square.
The event increased in size, and attracted around 100,000 people.

In 2006, Pride London hosted EuroPride, and fundamentally altered its set up.
The parade was rerouted from Piccadilly to Oxford and Regent Streets, and the event footprint was expanded toinclude Soho.

Approximately 600,000 people attended that event, making it a huge success for Pride London, and firmly establishing London’s Pride event as a major event in the LGBT calendar.

Pride London also held a two week arts festival, culminating in an all-star fund-raiser in the Royal Albert Hall.
On its campaigns, Pride London hosted the successful PridesbAgainst Prejudice conference, focussing on holding Pride events in hostile environments.

2007 saw a host of external problems around the event. Pride London’sdate was changed to a week earlier than usual in order to accommodate the Tour de France in London.
On the Thursday before the event, a car-bomb was found located just off the parade route, and there were serious concerns that the parade would have to be stooped or rerouted.
Thankfully, the bomb was cleared and the streets reopened on the Friday after intensive discussions with the Metropolitan Police and other statutory bodies.

On the Saturday, driving rain started the day off, and the BBC incorrectly broadcast in the morning that Pride had been
cancelled.
This was only corrected after frantic telephone calls.
Despite these tribulations, Pride London still attracted 200,000 people: significantly down on 2006, but still a big number for London.

The following weekend saw glorious sunshine for the Tour de France.

Pride London announced its twinning arrangement with the Latvian LGBTbrights organization Mozaika this year as well, an arrangement that Pride London and Mozaika still maintain today.

2008 saw the return to normality. Pride London was restored to its normal date of the first Saturday in July, and the event expanded significantly.
820,000 people attended in what proved to be one of the biggest LGBT events recorded in the United Kingdom ever.
Pride London was awarded a prestigious ‘Gold’ award by Visit London for its activities in 2008, marking Pride London as one of the top tourism ventures in London.

In October 2008, Pride London applied to InterPride for WorldPride status.
In a hotly contested competition with Stockholm Pride, Pride London won the bid process, and was awarded WorldPride status, with the WorldPride event scheduled for 2012.

In 2009, Pride London grew once again, with over 1,000,000 people attending the event as participants or spectators.
Pride London also re-launched its arts festival, and had over 80 events running in the two
weeks prior to the main day.
Highlights included a party-political debate with senior MPs from all parties attending, a twinning with the National Portrait Gallery for their Gay Icons exhibition, and a series
of comedy events at the E4 Udderbelly on the South Bank.

Pride London also announced its twinning with Outburst (UK), a national charitable organization that focuses on culture, education and performances, including the annual black LGBT Pride festival.

patrons and ambassadors

Pride London is lucky to have a number of supportive patrons and ambassador.
They give their time and resources to support us in a variety of ways, but most importantly by continuing to raise the profile of Pride London and of LGBT rights in the UK and across the world.

Sir Elton John -
Sir Elton is one of the dominant forces in rock and popular music having sold more than 250 million albums and over one hundred million singles, making him one of the most successful artists of all time.

Sir Elton was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994.
He has been heavily involved in the fight against HIV and AIDS since the late
1980s and was knighted in 1998.

Sir Ian McKellen -
Sir Ian is an stage and screen actor and LGBT rights campaigner.
He is best known for roles such as Gandalf in the Lord of the Rings film trilogy and as Magneto in the X-Men films.
His work has spanned Shakespearean and modern theatre to popular fantasy and science fiction.
He was made a Commander of the Order of the British Empire in 1979, knighted in 1991 for his outstanding work and contributions to the theatre and made a Companion of Honour in 2008 for services to drama and to equality.
He is a founding member of Stonewall.

Dr Christian Jessen -
Christian besides being a fully qualified MD but TV personality he currently presents the show Embarrassing Bodies and is the ambassador for the Pride London campaign "Health and Wellbeing"

Lord Waheed Alli
- Lord Alli is a media entrepreneur and politician. He was co-founder and managing director of Planet 24, a TV production company, and Managing Director at Carlton Television Productions. He is also a Labour Peer.

Rhona Cameron
- Rhona is a comedian. She rose to fame via the stand-up comedy circuit, to became a regular on British television.
Cameron is also a Patron of LGBT Youth Scotland - Scotland's national agency for lesbian,
gay, bisexual and transgender youth

Michael Cashman MEP
- Michael is a former actor, now a Labour politician.
He has been a Member of the European Parliament for the West Midlands constituency
since 1999.

Naechanè Romeo
Has been a strong and influential icon through out the LGBT and BLGBT community.
He has worked in schools to educated and raise awareness of LGBT issues in and outside London.
Naechanè Formally known as Mz Fontaine accomplished a great deal, from releasing two albums, organizing LGBT workshops, motivational speaking, Setting up the first LGBT recording studio, which helped produce the hit single "Tick Tock" which was featured on American's hit series (The L Word), touring acrossvthe UK, Europe, USA and finally winning the BLGBT Woman of the Year Award in 2008.

Stephen Fry
is an English actor, comedian, author and television presenter.
With Hugh Laurie, as the comedy double act Fry and Laurie, he co-wrote and co-starred in A Bit of Fry and Laurie, and the duo also played the title roles in Jeeves and Wooster.
Fry played the lead in the film Wilde, was Melchett in the Blackadder television series and is the host of the panel comedy trivia show, QI.
He has contributed columns and articles for newspapers and magazines, and has written four novels and an autobiography, Moab Is My Washpot. He has also presented his 2008 television series Stephen Fry in America, which saw him travelling across all 50 states in six episodes.

Wayne Sleep
- Wayne is dancer, director and choreographer.
He has been Principal Dancer with the Royal Ballet and has appeared as a Guest Artist with
several other ballet companies. He was appointed OBE in 1998.

Lord Chris Smith
- Lord Smith is a Labour Lord and former Member of Parliament and Cabinet minister.
He was the UK's first openly gay MP, coming out in 1984 and in 2005, the first MP to acknowledge that he is HIV positive.

Clare Summerskill
- Clare is a comedian and writer. She believes in bringing a unique cocktail of dyke comedy to mainly LGBT audiences, as well as writing for theatre and radio and owning her own theatre production company.

Peter Tatchell
- Peter is one of the most prominent campaigners for LGBT and human rights, democracy and global justice.
He is a member of the queer human rights group OutRage!, and the left-wing of the Green Party.
Peter is the Green Party parliamentary candidate for Oxford East, and the Green Party's spokesperson on human rights.
He lists his key political inspirations as Mahatma Gandhi, Sylvia Pankhurst, Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.