The attack on Berlin Pride will be a “real focal point” at Brighton and Hove Pride this weekend, organisers have said, as the UK’s biggest Pride festival prepares for the events.
Brighton and Hove Pride comes just a week after a van and stabbing attack in the German capital left one person dead and at least 29 others injured.
A poignant anniversary
Speaking ahead of the events, managing director Paul Kemp told the Press Association that he knows the community is thinking of the people affected.
“I think it’s kind of poignant because this year our parade is the 35th anniversary, it’s the power of love and I think it’s really focused minds from a community perspective and the general climate of the feeling that LGBT rights are being rolled back,” he said.
Mr Kemp added that one of his colleagues was in Berlin at the time and organisers will be speaking about it at the weekend.
“This year is reflecting on what’s happened in Berlin, is really highlighting the journey and the importance of why we have pride.”
On the attack, he added: “So whilst it’s a real focus, I think you know certainly for the people affected by it, I’m sure they would be very pleased to know that we are coming out and we are not going away.”
From 1973 to the present day
The first Brighton Pride march took place in July 1973, organised by the Sussex Gay Liberation Front. However, only a small part of the community felt safe enough to take part, and Pride did not return to the seaside city again until 1991.
For this milestone year, Brighton and Hove Pride seeks to honour early activists and “remember the courage it took to be visible”.
Mr Kemp made Brighton his “adopted home” after he came to the city aged 17 and started his first punk club. He has been managing director of the city’s Pride since 2013, but first became involved with it as a club promoter for the first dance tent on The Level in the mid-1990s.
“I think for a lot of probably older LGBT people like myself who remember being spat at in a parade, you know, 35 years ago, for example, that we are going to still come out and celebrate and show who we are and be who we are,” he said.
Safety measures in place
The Pride boss also said it was the right decision for Sussex Police to include armed police as part of safety, as they have in previous years, because it is a “reassurance”.
The force said firearms officers are among uniformed and plain-clothed officers working at the event, which is “standard practice for events of this scale”.
“This is all part of a comprehensive plan we have in place to ensure an effective policing operation, which has been months in the planning alongside the event organisers and partners,” a force spokesperson said. “Public safety remains our top priority.”
Mr Kemp said the planning is done all year round and is not a “knee-jerk reaction”.
“We want people to come and have a great time, feel safe, and I think this is just one of the measures to ensure that people are reassured.”
Festival highlights and crowds
Some 300,000 people are expected to take part in or watch the parade, while up to 450,000 people are estimated to turn out city-wide for Pride.
The city is gearing up for the community parade fronted by activists through the streets on Saturday, more than 150 LGBT+ acts across the weekend and headliners “our UK diva” Raye and “iconic” Diana Ross for its Pride on the Park event.
“It’s spanning the kind of generations of divas, let’s say,” Mr Kemp said. “You can’t get much more iconic than Diana Ross.
“Diana Ross supported the LGBT community during the Aids crisis, the famous story about Nile Rodgers and the song I’m Coming Out, how he wrote that song.
“So it really bookmarks the 35th anniversary really well, I think. We’ve got lots more iconic acts on…there’s lots of things happening across the city.”
Mr Kemp believes Pride in the open and inclusive city which celebrates its diversity is about celebration, protest, but also about the identity of Brighton and Hove as a place where people “love to live”.
“I think this weekend, it will be joyous, as it always is, especially the community parade where everyone comes together,” he said. “People come out to show their solidarity with the community and it’s just an amazing thing.”
