Manchester Pride Festival will not take place this year.
The beloved annual LGBTQ+ celebrations, which were scheduled to take place across the August Bank Holiday weekend, will now be postponed until 2021 due to uncertainty and safety concerns surrounding the coronavirus pandemic.
As with many other Pride festivals that have been postponed, tickets that have already been purchased for Manchester Pride Festival 2020 will now automatically roll over to a new date in 2021 – that will be announced soon.
“We are both heartbroken and devastated to deliver the news that we have made the decision to postpone this summer’s Manchester Pride Festival until August 2021,” they announced in a statement.
“Whilst we are a charity that campaigns all year round, the Festival is our flagship event. It is one of the biggest celebrations of LGBTQ+ life in the UK and the highlight of the year both for our team, and for many of you.
“This decision is not one that has been taken lightly. Our small team has been working tirelessly to ensure we would be prepared for every eventuality, and we have consulted with everyone that we needed to in order to reach this decision.
“To put it simply, the ongoing situation is incredibly uncertain and it would be too much of a risk to go ahead with plans to deliver the Festival this year.”
Manchester is the latest major city to cancel their 2020 Pride celebrations due to the coronavirus pandemic, following in the footsteps of London, Brighton, New York City and many more around the world.
As it stands, one of the only UK Pride celebrations still scheduled to take place this year is Birmingham Pride, which has been delayed until September. It remains to be seen if this will go ahead, but hopefully the situation is better by then.
Manchester Pride have set up a Q&A about the festival’s postponement which you can read here.
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