Worthing Pride Reduces Event Size For 2021—No Prom Parade

Organisers of Worthing's Pride festival, scheduled for July 10th 2021, are still going ahead with an event, but said this morning they'll scale down its size.

The "Parade On The Prom" won't go ahead, though the festival within the Beach House grounds on the seafront is still scheduled as normal.

In a statement, the group bringing Worthing Pride together stated it believed that a gradual return to 'normal' festivals is appropriate, given the possibility that some government restrictions on gatherings could still be in place.

Although the government has stated that all legal restrictions on social distancing could be lifted on June 21st 2021, ministers at the time of the declaration indicated that was an earliest possible date — and it could be delayed if the spread of the coronavirus had not reduced acceptably among other factors.

In January, Worthing Pride had announced its annual festival, which organisers describe as LGTBQI+, would be going ahead on Saturday 10th July 2021

The team of organisers said they'd making progress in the last year ensure Pride took place, in some form, in 2021 — saying they'd made substantial capital investments in acts and productions.

One aim, according to the team, was to ensure Worthing Pride becomes a stable part of the UK Pride calendar.

Event directors this morning said today's announcement was partly a reaction to what they described as a "surge in ticket demand in the last 7 days", leaving figures up by 67% on previous years tickets sale by March.

Like many other festival across the UK Worthing Pride is pleading with the public to keep to rules and follow the governments guidelines to ensure festivals are able to take place.

Organisers stated that the hospitality and event sector have been hit hard, and local Worthing businesses that rely on events in the town taking place to help with footfall have struggled and Worthing Pride want to give something back.

The main event in the grounds of the Beach House on Worthing's sea-front will be an enclosed, ticket only site.

The team behind Worthing Pride added that they were ready to have Covid-secure policies in place.

Worthing Pride organisers say:

“We are happy to final reveal months of our robust planning, risk assessing and artist line up plans.

"Despite the announcement from the UK government last Monday, we feel that bringing 20,000 members of the public to the seafront would simply be too soon.

"Therefore we would like the celebrations to continue but on a scaled back version.

"The Grounds at Beach House will hold 5,000 people which we feel is more suited this year as a gradually reintroduction to ‘normality’.

"Our number one priority has always been crowd and visitor safety while ensuring a credible event takes place for the town.

"Worthing Pride means so much to so many people and we are so pleased this year to be using 100% local suppliers and supporting local business within Worthing trying to rebuild the towns entertainment and business sectors."