Bristol Pride Festival Support

Aim: Bristol Pride is a week long series of events to celebrate & champion LGBT equality, city wide diversity culminating in a community festival

Bristol Pride is a vibrant and important event that champions and celebrates the lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans (LGBT) community with equality for all. It represents the chance for people, their friends, families and supporters to stand up and declare they are proud of who they are, their loved ones are and that prejudice and hate has no place in our city. We aim to challenge intolerance whilst creating opportunities for positive engagement, but we need your help.

Every year we work hard to put on Bristol Pride which is a weeklong series of activities that use Events and the Arts to: Celebrate the wider LGBT+ community, Challenge misconceptions and educate, raise awareness, tackle issues affecting our community, provide the chance for city wide engagement, to bridge communities, tackle hate crime and lastly provide safe spaces with specific work to engage those who are isolated and most vulnerable

The week of events culminates in an open outdoor music and arts festival that provides our biggest opportunity for engagement and links service providers and groups with their target audiences. It provides a platform for LGBT Talent and brings the whole of Bristol together in a visible and vocal statement of equality, for all.

Why Are We Crowdfunding?Pride costs thousands of pounds to put on (the toilets alone cost £2500!) and every year we have to raise the all the money to pay for Pride from scratch. Unlike some other Bristol city events and equality celebrations, or indeed other UK Pride events, we do not get automatic funding to happen. Whilst we do apply and sometimes get some small grant money, often for specific projects, these funding opportunities are reducing and year on year our costs increasing. With sponsorship and fundraisers we're doing well but we need to raise at least another £10,000.

We want to continue to deliver a week of events that challenge and educate whilst providing opportunities for LGBT performers, writers and artists, some of whom have gone on to great success. We often include events for marginalised members of the community; with costs such as venue hire, equipment and infrastructure continuing to rise, without support we simply will no longer be able to put these events on.

Pride Day itself has become a great success. Built from scratch in 2010 to being voted the 2nd BEST PRIDE in the UK in 2014. Everything at Pride Day has to be paid for including marquees, stages, tables and chairs, toilets, security and even onsite first aid as well as licences and site fees to hold the event.

We are working hard to keep Pride Day an event that is open to everyone instead of charging a set ticket fee (which would increase costs of the event in itself) as we feel this excludes those that may not be able to afford to attend or come to find out more about the community and how they can support. We've introduced a supporter wristband so that those who can and want to pay are able to do so - this is one of the rewards listed.

So to keep Pride alive we need support from the public. In 2013 donations on the day equated to just above 20p per person with 2014 not being much more. We simply cannot continue to deliver a vibrant and diverse festival without help to cover the infrastructure costs. Without a secure financial future the festival cannot develop artistically or achieve our ambitions to reach all communities in the area. If you want to keep Pride an event in the city please pledge what you can to support us.

The Power of PridePride not only provides safe spaces and events to support the LGBT community but it's great for the local economy. In 2013 it was assessed that Bristol Pride brought £953,000 into the local economy as Pride filled our hotels, brought people to our city centre streets and shops, supported other local community groups and events and local venues.

The success of Bristol Pride has raised the profile of the city nationally, offering opportunities to those in more rural areas but also attracting tourism. Last year 21% of those who attended Pride Day were from outside of the Bristol and Bath region and the success of Pride also means additional tourism to the city all year round.

More than this, sadly Pride is still needed. Things are getting better but there is still a long way to go and sadly as we have seen recently whilst we enjoy more rights and equality in the UK than most these rights can easily still be taken away.

Who Are WeBristol Pride is run by We Are Fest CIC, a not for profit community interest company, with charitable aims and objectives. We are asset-locked and run by volunteers who work incredibly long hours, around their day jobs, to deliver not only one of the largest festivals in Bristol but the largest free Pride events in the UK.

RewardsA fantastic and easy way to support Pride is to get a £5 supporter wristband - it's your donation to help make Pride happen and in return you'll get discount onsite at the festival including savings at the bar all day and money off at our food caterers.

There are also a number of other rewards available in return for supporting us including other festival tickets, Pride gold passes, VIP tickets to Pride, Tickets to Bristol Zoo and a fantastic specially mounted A3 print of the rainbow fireworks from the 150th anniversary celebrations for the Clifton Suspension Bridge.. 

Using crowdfunder we will receive your pledge only if we meet our target so it is a lot lower than we actually need to ensure we hit it, but please give what you can and help us not only reach our target but smash it! 

Thanks to those festivals and organisations who have donated rewards, Matthew White and Tim Crawley for the festival footage, Matthew Seow for Clifton Suspension Bridge photography, Country Studios for framing and to Omni Creative for filming and editing this crowdfunder video.

This project closed unsuccessfully on 14th May 2015