Visit our Live Blog all weekend at: FactsMCR.com Facts About and email us there. We have a Facebook group: “Facts About Manchester Pride 2021 - Pop-up Group.” Tell us FACTSHEET 2021 your experience — good or bad.

© RGS

August Bank Holiday Monday 1990

WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW You can walk into the Village and get into the HIV/AIDS Vigil in Sackville around the public streets without buying Park on the Monday night. a wristband and without any sort of pass. On 22 April 2015, the Local Government It’s your legal right to do this so you can Ombudsman ruled that Manchester City visit premises (businesses and homes) Council had exceeded its powers and that that can’t be reached by any route. the wording of its Traffic Regulation Order Some businesses, including bars and for Manchester Pride 2014 was “unlawful.” clubs, have allowed people in without a wristband every year since at least 2012. However you have a legal right to reach them whether they admit you or not No wristband has ever been required to The full ruling here: factsmcr.com/go/010

City Council contact The DFT says... Covid Just to liven up things this year the In a recent email to us, the Department You can only be asked for a COVID cer- Council has provided eight differ- For Transport writes that permission tificate when collecting tickets. ent phone numbers for support. The for the road traffic order for this year’s You don’t need one to enjoy your right number to call if you have an issue with event has been granted based on an as- of way into and around the streets of access to the pavements of the Village surance from Manchester City Council. the . depends on the day and time. That “there should not be any issues this year with people being stopped from Website Sat 28 August 2021 walking through the streets.” Visit the website for 12pm-5pm 07507 565738 Are the City Council and Manchester videos, articles and 5pm-10pm 07943 190071 / 07940 750114 Pride drinking in the last chance saloon? a short history of the situation. Past an- Sun 29 August 2021 nual factsheets are still worth a look. 12pm-5pm 07507 565738 / 07983 430588 Particularly the one for 2019 which has a 5pm-10pm 07976 582391 / 07814 132590 feature about the police. Ten years of Facts Mon 30 August 2021 Facts About Manchester Pride was 12pm-4pm 07811 846271 founded in spring 2011 by Wynnie and 4pm-8pm 07976 582391 / 07766 777301 Use your camera Geoff. By then some of us had been These phone numbers should be used If you see someone being hassled at campaigning for seven years and had only for access issues. The staff have no the gates to the Gay Village, consider re- found that asking nicely didn’t work. involvement other than during the shift cording a video on your phone . Also you We’ve done our best to report the worked. could record as you walk in through the facts honestly and truthfully, including You could also speak to a police officer gates yourself. Video has played a major much that the mainstream and LGBT if you see one on the street. role in bringing change over the years. media prefer to censor. From gas holder to VIP wristband holder Pride continues its tour of Man- chester’s most derelict city centre spots. This year it’s the site of a dirty old gas works on Medlock Street, where giant “gasometers“ would store noxious town gas that was produced by burning coal. The City Council wanted the BBC to relocate there but the Loose-lipped Village Beeb chose Media City instead. site. Now the gentrified area is sources and others tell Gradually the land is being devel- known as Macintosh Village. Linda the latest... oped and the arts centre Home Residents have just launched a occupies a small corner. legal challenge over a 55-storey Even the greediest Victorian student skyscraper nearer Oxford capitalists didn’t hit on the idea of Road, that City Council planners charging people a small fortune have approved. 750 letters of to stand on a toxic wasteland in objection were received. the pretence of it being a “VIP“ It looks like thousands of apart- experience. ment windows will be in direct line Hello my lovelies. I’m back Councillor court case But it’ll feel familiar to any older of fire from the two-day Pride pop queens who attend. When it was concert. Some just yards from the Which Manchester councillor with a bumper crop of dirt derelict in the 90s the Dunlop rub- stage. Which can’t be a lot of fun? was taken to court for copyright for Manchester Pride 2021. ber works (insert your own joke I suspect this will be another infringement in 2015? I’m going to need some extra here) was a notorious cruising one-off location for Pride Live. Shake ‘n’ Vac after this... The case was heard in the High Court, Chancery Division, Intel- Unexpectedly groped in the lectual Property Enterprise Court. Pride puzzle Canal Street area Where he was found personally jointly and severally liable along- © RGS Some years ago one of the Facts side his fellow director and their campaigners who, frankly, was no dissolved limited company. spring chicken, arranged to meet Total damages of £2,716 were a man who had connections with awarded to the photographer who Manchester Pride. After an inter- had spent £1,800 chartering a hel- esting discussion they wandered icopter to shoot the aerial photos along to the Gay Village. that were stolen. As they turned onto Canal Street the campaigner was astonished And for bonus points why hasn’t to feel an unwelcome hand on his this been reported anywhere, bottom. What a charmer. despite this charity trustee never And they wonder why people being out of the news? don’t want to “engage“ with them. Criminal Manchester Manchester Mardi Gras parade 1998 If I had a photo... Back in the 1870s the Manches- ter Evening News wrote a ten part People can’t understand why the of thousands of people together.” series on criminality. It saved the usual Saturday parade has been After the bankrupt Mardi Gras worst city centre area until last cancelled due to Covid “safety 1999 the organisers claimed and, you’ve guessed it, the final concerns.“ Could the answer be that a “staggering 600,000 plus” part features Canal Street. that Pride’s habit of grossly exag- people had been “on the city’s gerating attendance figures has streets” for the “biggest-ever“ finally bitten it in the bum? parade. Which would have been Any rational analysis of the more than one quarter of the parade route must conclude that population of Greater Manchester. 1999 — the year Mardi Gras was “Very few grades of life are the crowd on the pavements Never mind staggering, they run from the town hall, Councillor lower,“ the article tells the reader. is just a few tens of thousands would have been swaying like Karney was the chair and nothing As well as Ginger Liz and Cock- strong. But, even in response to acrobats — standing on shoulders was raised for good causes. ney Jim it mentions a man known the cancellation, Pride suggests three persons high across the Questions were asked about as Dirty Alf. that the parade brings “hundreds entire road and parade route. spending. The BBC focused on Despite his name, Alf has a the £21,000 cost of a big video “gorgeous“ front room filled with screen and £25,000 spent on mirrors, mahogany, a gilded Monitoring Julia Grant? performers. chandelier and “fanciful china In the box of Council documents The Council must have thought ornaments.” Rich curtains are the financial documents were that were found by Facts is a “festooned“ and there is a “ soft page torn from a magazine. It safely shredded. But one of the yielding carpet.“ Facts campaigners discovered dates from around 2000 — the “Vice reigns triumpant here,“ year when Julia Grant and her copies in a box in the library, 17 writes the journalist. “Criminal- years later. team organised GayFest, much to ity that can scarcely be touched the annoyance of the City Council. I couldn’t help but notice one upon.“ item in the accounts — an invoice In the article, a local gay journal- You know what that might ist who was also a BBC presenter from the Manchester Evening mean... News. Charging Mardi Gras £75 talks about which pubs he likes for a “photo Cllr P Karney.“ to go to. “Hollywood Showbar is a tives department. Visit our Live Blog all Pride week- place I regularly visit,“ he says. It suggests that people who end at: FactsMCR.com. And we That paragraph has been circled went to Julia’s premises were for the attention of two people being monitored at a high level have a Facebook group: “Facts Hard to believe the City Council within the Council who were within the Council. Something one couldn’t give Mardi Gras a free About Manchester Pride 2021 closely involved with Manchester might have expected in Com- picture of one of its own most- - Pop-up Group.” Tell us your Mardi Gras the previous year. munist East Germany rather than One of them in the Chief Execu- popular councillors? experience. Manchester. PAULA PICKS APART POSSIBLE PRIDE PROFLIGACY MANCHESTER PRIDE IN 1985? Charity money withheld for years More rewriting of LGBT history by the M.E.N. We identified a discrepancy between charity money shown as paid in Pride’s Recently the Manchester Evening News then Mardi Gras until 1999. In 2000 and accounts and the annual figures an- told readers that an event on August 2001 it was GayFest and then Mardi Gras nounced. Manchester Pride now says Bank Holiday Monday 1985 was “the again in 2002. what it’ll “distribute” each year rather first Manchester Pride.“ It wasn’t... In the box you can see a quote from than what was “raised” in a particular Just because gay people got together the booklet of the 1994 Annual General year. that weekend doesn’t mean it was ei- Meeting of The Village Charity which It holds on to some money announced ther a “pride“ or “Manchester Pride.“ ran the August event and distributed for good causes, calling it “unclaimed This is a lazy narrative used by journal- the money. You can see that the Charity grants.” Are we meant to believe Fletch ists and marketing people. Would they itself states that the weekend is “not & his team can’t think of a good cause to describe every event organised by the and never has been“ a pride. give the money to? Black community as a “Carnival?“ No Pride supplied these figures to us in they wouldn’t dare. 2017, signed off by the trustees: The September 1985 issue of Mancu- nian Gay magazine described it as the 2012/13 Announced £34,000 “Manchester Gay Pub and Club Olym- Distributed £19,911 pics “ and the “Gay Centre Fun Day.“ The 2013/14 Announced £54,000 word “pride” doesn’t appear. Distributed £47,200 In the past, pride events happened at 2014/15 Announced £146,000 the end of June because that was the Distributed £128,276 anniversary of the riots at the Inn in (28 June-3 July 1969). Rolling forward this “unclaimed” In June 1986 there was a “Northern £Pride“ in Manchester (see below) with money means they can make it look as if they raised more the following year. a launch in The Rembrandt. Was there We don’t yet know if this carried on a jumble sale in August 1986? We don’t In 2003 came to Manches- after 2015. But it begs the question: know. There certainly was one in 1989 ter. The first time the word “pride“ had how much have good causes actually and probably in 1988. The August jum- ever featured in the event name. received from the lucrative 2019 event? ble sale was all about fundraising for HIV The following year Marketing Man- and AIDS. chester (the tourist board) renamed the Separating business from charity In 1990 there was both a pride in June weekend Manchester Pride without any In recent years, Pride has referred to in Manchester and a jumble sale in discussion with the community. money for good causes as a separate August. So how could the jumble sale be The false narrative that the August “community fund.” a “pride“? Bank Holiday event was always a pride When buying a wristband, Ticketmas- We think the August weekend was is now being used to sideline the fund- ter warns this only funds the event and called the Carnival of Fun in 1991, raising. invites buyers to make a separate dona- Tickled Pink in 1992, AbFab in 1993 and The main reason it began... tion to charity. How much from the Big Weekend itself goes to good causes? Since early 2020, Pride’s “grant” page simply states “Manchester Pride Grants are temporarily closed as we assess the developing situation and hope to have an update soon.” The “community fund” is separate when it suits them; so why hold onto it because of potential restrictions on the 2020 event? The pandemic left some LGBT people needing more support than ever. The most recent Annual Review is for the 2018 event, announcing £168,000 to be “distributed in 2019.” The £121,135 announced in their accounts ending 31/12/2019 may be entirely from 2018. What have they actually distributed from the 2019 event? Probably not the 3% widely shared on social media. Good causes might not have seen a single penny from 2019’s £3.94m event. New protests, groups and campaigns. What’s happening and will anything change? We’ve been campaigning as Facts About Manchester Pride for ten years. THE MAIN CHARITIES AREN’T INNOCENT PARTIES Some of us go back much further. In recent weeks the media narrative been a charity event since 2002. It We have a small core of campaigners has tended to be a simplistic one of was billed for three years of VAT. This and few if any have a financial interest bad Pride versus wonderful charities. didn’t receive much publicity. in Pride, its sponsors, the charities or But the LGBT Foundation (previ- Yet on the BBC Radio Manchester Village businesses. We don’t receive ously known as the LGF) was at the breakfast show recently someone who grants, business income or wages. The meeting in November 2002 at which was involved was allowed to pretend group isn’t aligned with any political all present were told they couldn’t that the Operation Fundraiser years party. The same can’t be said of some charge people to enter streets that were some kind of golden age. others. were closed. George House Trust was The financial accounts show the The fact that someone has an inter- there too. LGBT Foundation spent £40,500 on est of some sort doesn’t mean they’re a From 2003 the streets were unlaw- photocopier rental for its 35 staff in bad person. But often we see individu- fully closed, people were charged, and 2013. A further £72,750 was due within als who only want to change certain both organisations ran the wristband 2-5 years. bits of this event to benefit themselves. scheme which was known as “Opera- While leaving their own particular patch tion Fundraiser.“ untouched. Despite initial promises of “transpar- So always take a hard look at who’s ency“ (sound familiar?) soon questions behind anything new. Who do they were being asked about leaflets that know? Where do they work? Which is- seemed somewhat misleading. sues do they choose not to talk about? In 2004, the charge made by Opera- Over the years often we’ve seen pro- tion Fundraiser for running the wrist- tests and petitions in the weeks before band scheme increased by 30%. Yet Pride and then everything goes dead in only 36,000 bands were sold in 2004 September for another 11 months. — probably the lowest figure ever. It’s even possible that some of these There was no explanation for how this are created to distract, manage public situation could lead to such a rise in dissatisfaction and neutralise it. costs. Years ago, as Healthy Gay Manches- The sum raised for charity didn’t ter it was all about condoms. Now, POLITICIANS seem to change much from year to with an annual income of £2.25m and When there’s a problem a politician year and people began to notice. 59 employees (up from 45 staff in pops up and sometimes promises meet- Operation Fundraiser was scrapped 2019) does it really need a grant from ings. But often little or nothing is heard in 2006 because HM Customs and Pride to run the free condom scheme? once the drama drops out of the news. Excise decided the weekend hadn’t Or are there more deserving causes? An example is after the reported chaos at Mayfield in 2019. Recently VILLAGE BUSINESSES THE PRIDE CEO we put in a Freedom of Information When we drew up a business plan for a Are the knives out for Mark Fletcher? request to the City Council. We asked for replacement event with Julia Grant in Will he be a convenient scapegoat, while documents that would show what was 2013, a few of the business people were nothing else changes much? We saw a discussed and decided. onboard. A major bank wanted to fund a similar situation in 2013. But the Council says no documents new community centre in the Village. In Considering all the powerful interests are available because meetings took the end there wasn’t enough support that have a finger in this pie, any CEO is place at Manchester Pride. It has no Some business people knew about the limited in what he or she can do. documents about what seemed to be a illegality surrounding wristbands many By 2013, before Fletcher took over, serious health and safety situation... years ago but let it happen. we had noticed moves that seemed The aim is a few small changes along Some were on the board of Manches- designed to sideline the fundraising. with platitudes to satisfy the public. But ter Pride in the past and helped to cre- That slog was being replaced with then business much the same as usual. ate and continue what we see today. “celebrating“ and other woolly objec- THE MEDIA tives that might only require a bit of year-round tweeting from the office. In all the coverage of Manchester Pride in recent weeks did you notice any men- THE BOTTOM LINE tion of the ten-year-long unlawful situa- tion with wristbands and the continuing How many more times will the pub- issues in 2019? lic allow the people who control this Were readers, listeners or viewers weekend to come up with another slight told they could walk into the Gay Village variation on the same theme? without paying? The low fundraising and disrespectful The BBC, Manchester Evening News attitude towards our rights, the fam- and others seem to self-censor. Whose ily and friends we lost and those who interests do they represent? © RGS started this weekend are no accident.