Latest news with #UKPON
BBC News
05-07-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
London Pride returns as events struggle with falling funds
On Saturday more than one million people are expected to attend Pride in London, the UK's largest LGBTQ+ despite huge visitor numbers, organisers say the event - and others like it around the country - face an uncertain future due to a drop in funding and falling volunteer than 85 Pride organisations say they've seen a reduction in corporate sponsorships or partnerships, according to a questionnaire by the UK Pride Organisers Network (UKPON), which said it represents the majority of UK Pride celebrations have already been cancelled or postponed, while others are scaling back plans or charging for tickets to what have previously been free-to-attend events. The UK's Pride movement began in 1972 when a group called the Gay Liberation Front (GLF) decided that, as well as protesting, it was also important to celebrate the the time, same-sex couples showing affection in public could have seen them Pride events take part across the world, often combining protest, in the form of marches and rallies, with parties and live News has spoken to a number of Pride organisers about their worries for the future of Pride events, and what they believe is behind the drop in funding. 'If America sneezes, the UK catches a cold' Dee Llewellyn is volunteer chair of UKPON, and also works full-time as Pride in London's head of believes that, for large-scale celebrations such as in Pride in London, international corporations moving away from Diversity Equity and Inclusion (DEI) policies is one of the driving forces behind the drop in said: "There's an old saying, if America sneezes, then the UK catches a cold, and I think we're really feeling that right now."Global corporations, with head offices based in America, have had their DEI funding cut, which has meant that some corporations, even ones that have been really long-standing supporters of Pride in the UK, have no longer got a budget to do so."Despite the difficulties it faces, London continues to be the UK's largest Pride event and over the past few years attendance has grown to 1.5 million people, making it one of the city's largest public to the Pride in London website, the cost of their 2024 event was £1.7m. Asked why a Pride event - which is seen by many as a form of protest first and foremost - costs this much to run, Dee told the BBC: "It's about making safe spaces, not just emotionally safe but physically safe for everybody there as well - it means paying for security staff, barriers, road closures."As Pride grows, and the numbers grow, the cost and the level of health and safety and other infrastructure grows as well. No Pride would be able to go ahead without meeting those health and safety regulations."Although the focus this weekend will be very much on the capital, UKPON told the BBC that Pride events up and down the country are facing similar April UKPON asked its 201 members whether they were facing any financial or operational the 112 organisations that responded:More than 85 reported lost revenue from corporate sponsorships and partnerships this yearMore than 40 said that the drop was between 26% - 50% compared to last year21 said they'd experienced their revenue fall by more than half in that same periodMore than 60 said they'd seen reductions in grants from corporations or charitiesIn recent weeks, several Pride organisations have taken the decision to cancel City Region Pride announced in June that rising costs and difficulty securing funding "made it impossible to bring Pride to Liverpool this year".Another charity has since stepped in to organise an alternative event. 'I'm absolutely gutted' Plymouth Pride, which organisers say usually has an estimated 6,000-7,000 attendees, will this year also not go ahead in its official told the BBC they were £12,000 short of the estimated £35,000 it costs to put on their annual event, which includes a march through the city and a number of stages showing MacDonald, chair of Plymouth Pride, told the BBC that rising costs for things like security, first aid and toilet facilities, combined with a drop in grant funding, had left the organisation with no choice but to cancel the official said: "Ultimately it was [grant] funding that was the make or break for us and this year it didn't work."I'm just absolutely gutted because I think it's more important this year to have Pride than any other year."A smaller group, Plymouth Community Pride, has now raised funds to host an alternative event in the city."We've been very lucky this year, the community rallied together and a separate organisation is putting on lots of little events. We'll hopefully come back bigger and stronger next year," Alex added. Charging for tickets is 'one of the most difficult decisions' In June, more than 6,000 people attended The Pink Picnic, an event organised by a team of volunteers from Salford Pride in the city's Peel in 2011, it's marketed by organisers as a small, community-focused Pride event and is seen as a quieter alternative to Manchester Pride, a ticketed multi-day event with celebrity headliners which takes place a few miles down the 2025, Salford Pride took the decision to charge for tickets for the first time in order to plug what they say was a £40,000 shortfall in sponsorships from corporate team, made up entirely of volunteers, decided to charge £5 per ticket, but estimate that the event costs around £18 per Holmes, event lead for Salford Pride, said it was "one of the most difficult decisions" his team of volunteers have had to make and that it led to some "being subjected to quite a lot of abuse online."Despite The Pink Picnic being a relatively small event, costs such as security and stewards - which Reece said are essential to run a public event - mean it costs around £100,000 a year to told the BBC: "We've had a 28% increase in costs from 2024, but we've also lost three corporate sponsors since then. "It's a mixture of economic issues and I think the political climate at the minute, I think [companies] are a little bit scared to support Prides."Reece said that without charging for tickets to cover some of the costs, the event would not have been able to go ahead."We're being forced to make these kinds of decisions due to a lack of funding, due to economic issues and due to the political climate."Although many Prides have told the BBC they are struggling financially, and may have to scale back or charge more for events in the future, Dee Llewellyn said there is "no chance" Pride as a movement will added: "We need to remember that we as a community are incredibly resilient."We have always been resilient and we always will be, so while we might go through this ebb and flow, and we've fallen off a cliff this year with corporate partnerships, we will find ways around that."We are going to club together, stand together and be stronger and more united and we will come back stronger."
The Independent
02-07-2025
- Entertainment
- The Independent
Liverpool Pride back on after LGBTQ+ charity steps up
Liverpool Pride is back on this year, after an LGBTQ+ charity has stepped in to help facilitate and coordinate a city-wide, community-led celebration. The original organisers, LCR Pride Foundation, originally cancelled their 26 July party and parade plans due to 'significant financial and organisational challenges, which have impacted timescales and resulted in it reverting to an almost entirely volunteer-led operation'. But Sahir House, the city's oldest LGBTQ+ charity, shared on social media that they have 'turned things around' and Pride will be 'louder, prouder, and truly ours.' This year's Pride in Liverpool will see a new march route, a queer arena celebration, as well as activities for families and a Pride Quarter family as Sahir House said 'pride is for everyone.' It comes after The Independent reported last week that Pride organisers are warning Donald Trump's DEI rollback in the states was having an effect in the UK, with UK Pride Organisers Network (UKPON) cited a decline in corporate sponsorships for 75 per cent of Pride events across the UK this year. Organisers said that big corporations that had long sponsored Pride were 'pulling back their funding in all aspects', especially if they have head offices in the US. Dee Llewellyn, chair of UKPON and director of partnerships and growth for London Pride, said support for Pride had 'fallen off a cliff', causing a number of events across the country close their doors, including big events such as Liverpool. Sahir House has set a goal of £60,000 in order to fund its grassroots Pride celebration, having so far managed to raise £15,416. John Hyland, former co-chair of Liverpool Pride and the Community Partnerships and Individual Giving Lead for Sahir, had told The Independent that now more than ever before, Pride was necessary. 'I think definitely in light of what's happened with the Supreme Court ruling, we've had a number of number of transgender community-led protests happen in Liverpool,' he said. 'If there's a year where we need Pride to happen, it's this year and our community has been very vocal about that.' The charity said in a statement on its website: 'Thanks to the passion, determination and sheer graft of local LGBTQ+ artists, activists, organisations and allies, we've turned things around to make Pride happen. 'This year, we're proudly calling it Liverpool's Pride – with an apostrophe and an 's' – because this Pride belongs to all of us. It's Liverpool's moment to come together, celebrate loudly, protest proudly, and reclaim our Pride with love, resilience and joy.' Pride will kick off in the city with a grassroots celebration in Prescot, taking place at Shakespeare North Playhouse on 19 July with creative workshops, spoken word, 'a symbolic Pride demonstration' with flash mobs, as well as social spaces and community connection. 'Let's celebrate Pride together, where every voice is heard and every identity shines', a statement read.
BBC News
07-06-2025
- Entertainment
- BBC News
Portsmouth hosts UK Pride 2025 celebrations
Portsmouth will take centre stage later as it hosts the UK Pride 2025 Hampshire city was chosen out of more than 260 community-run Pride organisations across the UK "with a strong majority", said UK Pride Organisers Network (UKPON).The celebration will "shine a national spotlight on the work of a volunteer-run local charity organising one of the biggest, completely free and unfenced Pride events in the country", said Portsmouth festival is a celebration of LGBTQ+ communities and the event is free and open to all. Thousands of people are expected at the main event, described as the focal point to the pride season by UKPON, on Southsea Robinson, from Portsmouth Pride, said: "What we do is unique".Portsmouth Pride is "fully volunteer run, fully community run, completely free and completely unfenced on a scale that nobody else and does," he said."We thought that's the opportunity, to use the UK pride title to show off that work." 'Year of work' The event is open to everyone, said CP, adding: "The bigger we can make it, the more people we can impact. "It's not about us as an LGBTQ+ community necessarily just coming together and doing something, it's about saying to the rest of the city of Portsmouth - and anyone else who wants to come and visit us - this is us, this is our community, this is our work, this what we do."The celebration on Saturday will be the "product of a year of work", said CP."Pride is not just that one day, we're running programmes and projects and initiatives year round, with sport and health and HIV and sober spaces, drug and alcohol addiction recovery services – the day is the celebration of all of that work." Nadine Coyle from Girls Aloud will be headlining at the event, alongside entertainment from Ru Paul's Drag Race UK winner Kyran Thrax and alumni Victoria Scone and River Medway, plus Katie Price and Sabrina Washington from Mis-Teeq. You can follow BBC Hampshire & Isle of Wight on Facebook, X (Twitter), or Instagram.
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Business Standard
04-06-2025
- Business
- Business Standard
Trump's attack on DEI hits UK as corporate sponsors abandon LGBTQ pride
The Trump administration's attack on US diversity, equity and inclusion policies is reverberating across the Atlantic, with corporations abandoning sponsorships of Britain's Pride festivals, threatening key funding for events this summer. Three quarters of more than 100 Pride organizers have seen a decline in corporate partnerships this year and a quarter of them have seen funding from sponsorships drop over 50 per cent, according to exclusive data from the UK Pride Organisers Network (UKPON). That's hit smaller parades particularly hard, with several canceling events that were planned for Pride Month, which is celebrated globally each June in memory of the Stonewall protests. Sponsorship withdrawals have been particularly pronounced from American businesses, according to Pride in London. The UK's biggest LGBTQ parade relies on corporate sponsors to cover the £1.7 million ($2.3 million) it costs to host more than 1.6 million attendees during its July 5 festival. But this year, longtime sponsors have stepped away, said Christopher Joell-Deshields, chief executive officer of Pride in London. 'Across the Pride movement, there is a very different feel this year,' Joell-Deshields said. 'Some of our sponsors are global partners and we're seeing the effect of those who are based in the US who have seen the roll back of DEI. We're having to push harder in terms of sponsors and getting them to understand the importance of the Pride platform.' Companies doing business in the US have rushed to appear politically neutral after President Donald Trump signed executive orders demanding the end of what he calls 'illegal DEI.' The order was a culmination of a broader blowback against what some US conservatives have dubbed 'woke capitalism,' with activists calling for boycotts against firms that give money to causes like LGBTQ rights and racial-equity programs. The pullback in LGBTQ support is a trend already documented in the US, where a survey of corporate executives revealed that two in five were scaling back Pride Month engagement this year, leaving organizers scrambling for funds. Earlier in May, New York City Pride announced it was looking at a $750,000 budget shortfall and launched a community fundraising campaign to keep the event free to attend. Still, it's not all the Trump effect, according to Jamie Love, the marketing director for Pride in Edinburgh. The UK's intensifying debate over transgender rights, with the Supreme Court recently ruling that the legal definition of a woman is based on biological sex, has caused some brands to sidestep Pride partnerships altogether to avoid controversy, he said. 'The ones that want to engage, want to engage really meaningfully, but there are fewer of them,' said Love, adding that this is proving to be 'the driest year' for sponsorships. The website for the festival in the Scottish capital now displays just five partners, including German supermarket brand Lidl and the UK's Tesco Plc. Last year, the site boasted 13 sponsors. The page for the London festival has recently been updated with a list of 2025 sponsors and advocates, among them is headline sponsor Pridepay, a UK-based payment processing platform for the LGBTQ community. However, other brands that have featured repeatedly in recent years are missing this year. Still, the biggest impact has been on smaller festivals. Some Pride events were canceled in Southampton, Hereford and Taunton, while Plymouth's official parade has been replaced by a community-led one. Looking forward, Pride organizations may have to diversify their revenue streams, seeking more grant funding from councils or turning free parades into ticketed events, said Dee Llewellyn, the chair of UKPON. In the interim, LGBTQ+ organizations will have to adapt to the new environment, said Ian Howley, CEO of health and wellbeing charity LGBT HERO. Even if larger brands ask to sponsor events again once the dust settles, he said the community won't easily forgive firms for abandoning them this year. 'The damage is already done and we don't forget,' Howley said. 'We will remember that they weren't there when we needed them the most.'
Bloomberg
04-06-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Trump's Attack on DEI Hits UK as Corporate Sponsors Abandon LGBTQ Pride
The Trump administration's attack on US diversity, equity and inclusion policies is reverberating across the Atlantic, with corporations abandoning sponsorships of Britain's Pride festivals, threatening key funding for events this summer. Three quarters of more than 100 Pride organizers have seen a decline in corporate partnerships this year and a quarter of them have seen funding from sponsorships drop over 50%, according to exclusive data from the UK Pride Organisers Network (UKPON). That's hit smaller parades particularly hard, with several canceling events that were planned for Pride Month, which is celebrated globally each June in memory of the Stonewall protests.
