Brighton
Pride 2002
It’s
always a great weekend away by the sea. Kicking off at 11am a colourful parade,
starting on the sea front promenade winds its way up through the city,
finishing at Preston
Park where the festival
is held. The festival is completely free, relying only on donations and charity
events throughout the year to cover the £125,000 that it costs to put on. They
don’t spend huge amounts on big name PA's for the main stage, instead they have
old favourites like Petula Clark, Angie Brown, Coco
from Fragma, and Kelly Lorena.
The
park was great fun despite the heavy down pore of rain at the beginning of the
day. Everywhere got very water-logged and extremely muddy under foot; however I
think it helped create an even closer atmosphere amongst everyone, with many of
the lesbians making it a good excuse for a mud wrestle. As soon as the rain
started there was a mad rush for the dance tents, unfortunately the estimated
50,000 people that turned up couldn't all fit inside a 2,000 capacity Wild Fruit dance tent
along with a few other tents from Revenge and Candy Bar,
which left long queues stranded outside to brave the elements. The rain
continued for a couple of hours and then there was brilliant sunshine, strong
enough to give us a bit of sunburn, although I don't suppose the baby oil
helped! We were working for Wild Fruit in the park, gogo dancing and handing out flyers
to promote there new CD. If it's got music anything like what they played in
the dance tent then I'm sure it'll be a big hit.
When
the park came to a close at 8pm the bars and clubs took over, long queues soon
formed with them all reaching capacity early in the night. The biggest party
was Scream, run by Wild Fruit and Candy
Bar at the spectacular
Brighton Dome. Tickets sold out like hot cakes days in advance but it wasn't
unfortunately all smooth running. People were complaining that there were long
queues to get past the security checks on the way in and just as everyone had
got inside there was a small fire causing the whole venue to be evacuated for a
good hour. The fire-fighters sure got a roaring reception when they turned up.
Thanks to everyone who was involved with
making this year’s event another great one.
www.PrideinBrightonandhove.com
Photos in the above 3 galleries were sponsored by Now UK magazine (issue 44)
