Moving the Pride Street Party to Marine Parade has been a failed experiment, council and Pride bosses agreed at a meeting last night.
Kemptown residents were also told the Nick Cave gig the night before Pride in the Park also led hotel prices to surge, pricing out LGBTQ+ revellers and leaving Sunday trade “massively” down on previous years.
Both these things will lead to a rethink for next year’s event, Pride chairman Paul Kemp said.
But Brighton and Hove City Council’s outdoor events development manager Ian Baird said managing the event in such a residential area – particularly one with so many Airbnbs demanding free tickets for guests – meant it would be a challenge to come up with a workable solution.
Speaking at the Pride Street Party feedback meeting at St Mary’s Church Hall last night, Mr Baird said: “There’s a real tension at the core of this. We are doing this in good faith and it’s not an attempt to do harm.
“The tension that on one had we have the dangers of massive crowding, and the answer to that is to fence.
“But there’s a strong resistance to fencing off where people live and the difficulties of controlling numbers where there’s lots of entrances and it’s full of houses.
“How do you create a street that’s pedestrianised and open access, but isn’t such a draw that you end up with dangerous crowds?
“I don’t think fencing off St James’s Street is the right answer. I think pedestrianisation is good. But we need to work out what we can put into St James’s Street that creates a party but not where you end up with a dangerous amount of people.”
The meeting heard from several residents who said they had not been told which roads were closed to non ticketholders until the fences were put up on the morning of the party.
Karen Byrne-Roberts, who lives in Charles Street, said: “Our street is always closed off, but this year we were told it wouldn’t be.
“We contacted the Pride telephone number to check and had no responses. Then on the day, we had security telling us the road wasn’t going to be closed – and then it was.
“Residents who had left the street and who returned that afternoon were prevented from getting into their road, to get to their own house because they didn’t have the right ID.”
Another resident said: “People who live in Kemp Town are taking the brunt without having any of the benefits, unless they pay to go into it. I think there’s something profoundly wrong with that.”
Chris Marshall, manager of the Charles Street Tap which closed last month, said: “Last year was our biggest ever Pride, but we saw a massive demographic shift.
“Saturday is the day trippers – you are managing people who have come own from London, often very straight, they’re just here to party and the opportunity for things to go wrong is high.
“Every operator will tell you Sunday is their favourite. It’s locals, LGBT, and that feels like everybody’s Pride.
“This year, numbers were massively down and it felt very straight across the board. Sunday was ridiculous and we were sitting there asking each other were the hell is everybody?
“I initially thought the reason for that is that last year people came down expecting things to be on Marina Parade and didn’t realise they could get into St James’s Street for free.
“But I did a walk round to St James’s Street and there was still hardly anyone there.
“It was to do with hotels surge pricing – all to do with the Nick Cave gig on the Friday. A booking which would usually cost £600 was costing £1,200.”
Revenge managing director Steve Jones said: “On Friday, Revenge was 40 per cent down on the year before. The Nick Cave concert had a massive impact on that.
“Across the weekend, we were 25 per cent down year on year. Saturday still felt a little bit different. People weren’t staying for the weekend.”
Mr Kemp said: “Numbers were down this year because of the Friday. That should be taken on board. I think Pride week should be Pride week.
“I prefer the previous model but it wasn’t without its complications. It’s a complex animal. It’s not like Manchester where Canal Street isn’t residential or a bus route.”
He also reminded people the street party was first ticketed in 2013 after it became dangerously crowded in 2012.
He said that giving wristbands to residents worked well initially, when 3,000 were given out, but by 2021 demands for extra tickets from residents and Airbnbs meant 8,000 were being given away – many of which then ended up being sold on, making the event unviable.
Mr Baird said: “The growth of Airbnbs in the area has been really problematic. When someone hires an Airbnb they have the right of entry to that residence.
“It might be six people there on the Friday and six on the Saturday – that’s 12 wristbands.”
He added: “Nothing that’s been said tonight is a surprise to me. This year hasn’t worked and we need to look at what the next step is. We need to look at what the Pride CIC put on the table and then decide if it fits the bill.
“But I don’t think we can get back to a position where we can fence off large parts of Kemp Town where people live.”
Mr Kemp said: “There’s a lot of different views. We’re not going back to the old model. I think you need sign up – it’s about getting residents access and all the new laws that are in place.
“The council work closely with Pride to come up with a safe solution.”
Just stop pride. Simple.
It’s a disaster as far as gridlocking the city is concerned.
Main Roads are NOT event spaces. Buses, deliveries and emergency vehicles still have to be able to get through. Public safety must prevail.
It’s also an economic disaster for established businesses when pop up events and venues are facilitated to take in more revenue than the permanent ones – one of the reasons we are now losing the Charles St Tap and R-Bar. This myopic council would rather support temporary and pop-up venues than local businesses paying them BUSINESS RATES 24/7, 365 days a year.
Then they have the cheek to cry crocodile tears when they close down.
Just cancel the whole thing. It’s not working for anyone.
PRIDE did not work anywhere this year, Preston park on Saturday was a STRAIGHT MUSIC FESTIVAL with only Legends and Lunch positive at the park from the local scene. Even Lunch positive was hidden away in the woods away from the main footfall. Saturday was overcrowded, Sunday even with Dianna Ross on was quite quiet.
PRIDE has now got far too expensive as organisers go for the very Top acts which cost a fortune. Preston park must have been easy to set up as there were few big top tents as most of the day is centred around the straight music festival. The biggest job must have been putting the fence around the park up.
Ian Baird from the council thinks he is not accountable last year he said St James street would remain open to traffic and the street party was moved(excluding most of our scene venues) due to new terror laws. I told him leaving the street open around our main venues created a easy target. When it had to be closed due to numbers of people the Police blamed local venues that had no control of the street.
Nothing worked this year most of my local friends stayed away from the scene during Pride and could not afford Preston park which is massively over priced to get in and to buy anything there.
Next year we are going to avoid Preston Park and the corporate street party as Pride has been taken away so we will make our own Pride.
There was nothing at Preston park to say it was anything to do with Pride.
The organisers of Pride, the council and the Police have taken away PRIDE from the community it is meant for , Sunday shown that around St James street and the corporate street party they were very quiet most locals kept away and stayed local near to where we live.
The street party worked when it was £5 but the corporate street party with little to offer was too expensive. Now Charles street and R-bar have closed down or closing the street party is now pointless on the seafront.
Pride was not as good as it was last year.
The street party excluded the local scene so regulars kept away. Yes the corporate event was busy Saturday, but for locals day Sunday we did not want to support an expensive corporate event so we kept away. Basically the Street party failed because the scene Pride was meant for was excluded. You can blame the concert on Friday but it was nothing to do with it as most of us live local so did not need a hotel.
Move the street party to blackrock then let the scene have our own Pride.