Birmingham Pride 2019 location announced following uncertainty about event’s future

After seeking feedback from over 6,000 Birmingham Pride visitors, pride organisers have now announced that the festival will remain in the city’s iconic Gay Village.

Earlier this year, due to major developments taking place throughout the Gay Quarter, Pride organisers announced that the weekend LGBTQ+ festival will be relocating to a new host site.

After receiving mixed responses to the news, a survey was released asking the region’s LGBTQ+ community to decide where they would like to see the event staged. The results are in and the outcome has now been decided.

The queer community were asked to decide from three options:

1. To say in Birmingham’s Gay Village and utilise available spaces more efficiently to host the event.
2. To move the full event to Calthorpe Park – a mere 1.4 miles away from the Gay Village.
3. To move the main stages to Calthorpe Park whilst retaining the iconic street party in Birmingham’s Gay Village.

After receiving the opinions of over 6000 people, the result is clear. 85% of respondents voted overwhelmingly that the event should remain in Birmingham’s Gay Village. The other options were incredibly unpopular receiving 4% and 11% in the vote respectably.

Speaking to Midlands Zone, Birmingham Pride Festival Director Lawrence Barton commented, “The Pride team are working hard to deliver an even more diverse festival in 2019, one that will  now remain in the gay village.”

He continued: “Preparations are already being made to look at locating the Dance Arena on the top floor of the Arcadian Car Park, and the Main Stage down at the bottom of Hurst Street – either on the street or the adjacent car park, which is due to be flattened soon to provide an open-air car park. The Cabaret Stage could be located on the road in between Amusement 13 and the Nightingale Club.”

Birmingham Pride regularly attracts tens of thousands of spectators annually who line the city’s streets in a beautiful display of colour and diversity. Though it will be a large challenge to utilise available spaces, it could be viewed as an opportunity for Birmingham Pride to evolve.

Birmingham Pride – the UK’s largest two-day LGBTQ+ festival – will be held from Saturday 25^th May to Sunday 26^th May 2019. For more details, visit: www.birminghampride.com.