Worthing Pride's Message To Friends At Brighton Pride

"We are heartbroken to hear that our fantastic neighbours along the coast at Brighton have had to postpone for another year."

Organisers of Worthing Pride, which is still taking place, sent the message to friends along the coast as reaction came in on Wednesday (May 5) to the news that, for a second consecutive year, Brighton Pride would not be happening.

The festival, one of Europe's largest, was cancelled after concerns that government covid rules for large gatherings would become known with too little time to prepare safely for Pride. 

There were also worries that no viable insurance policy, to help recoup losses in the event of cancellation, existed.

Meanwhile, Worthing Pride repeated its commitment to go ahead at The Beach House on Saturday July 10, though in a form slightly different from the event two years ago.

Worthing Pride organisers said:

“The impact Brighton Pride has on the community will most definitely be felt again this year, but we completely understand their concerns surround organising the country’s largest Pride event.

"Worthing Pride being a considerably smaller event with people attending one fixed ticketed location and with reduced capacity while not being spread out across the city makes our planning of Worthing Pride a lot more straight forward."

The size of Worthing Pride, the team added, makes it easier to plan with relatively little time to go between any revelation of government safety regulations and the event itself.

In 2019, Worthing Pride saw 2,500 tickets sold for the main event.

Organisers continued:

"Its great to hear our event being linked to such a huge production, however Worthing Pride is a much smaller event within the community.

"We are a pre-sold event and will not be selling tickets on the gates thus discouraging people to arrive in the town without a ticket.

"We announced back in March of this year we had taken the decision to cancel the promenade parade this year and only focus on the enclosed COVID secure main event as we could not guarantee the safety of our guests or contractor at the parade.

"This was due to the impossible task of asking crowds to maintain government guidelines while watching and partaking in the parade where 2019 saw over 15,000 people attend the seafront.

"We have now spent a huge amount of time with our planning teams ensuring facilities are in place at the main event grounds meeting all the guidelines set out by the government roadmaps.

"Unlike Brighton Pride, our overheads to produce the event are much lower allowing us to move all of our focus onto ensuring we have key features in place to allow the event to take place safely.

"This means we have the ability to socially distance our queuing systems, install mobile hand washing stations, increase socially distanced toilet facilities, bar and a food queuing system which will also be socially distanced along with a full track and trace system in place for all visitors, to name but a few.

"We cannot wait to see Brighton Pride back in 2022 as their event is the main building block of every pride in the country over the last 30 years and their support within in the community is very much needed and we look forward to welcome our guest to a smaller Worthing Pride 2021 on the 10th July."