The opportunity for North East-based performers to be part of Northern Pride 2023, which will run over the weekend of July 22-23, has been unveiled by the event organisers.
This year’s event attracted around 70,000 people, with Northern Pride also hosting UK Pride, a title it won to deliver in 2020 but which was postponed because of the pandemic.
Speaking at the North East Exchange, at Sunderland’s Fire Station, Northern Pride director, Ste Dunn, revealed how there would be paid opportunities for the region’s creative community.
North East Exchange is an initiative designed to help connect artists, creative, venue and festival programmers working in performance, and was a great opportunity to share how the festival was a departure from previous years, where the emphasis was more on celebrating the talent within the region’s LGBTQ+ community and giving them a platform, rather than a programme of big name celebrities.
And the success of that direction has led the team behind Northern Pride to start the search for individuals and groups to be involved in 2023, with Ste wanting to get people to sign up as early as possible. “We won the title of UK Pride in 2018 and was finally able to deliver it this year,” he said.
“Our promise was to use that status to elevate and celebrate the North East’s LGBTQ+ community and one of the ways we did that was to ensure our event programme was focussed on the regional community.
“In fact 90% of the all the performers, creatives, artists and activists, who appeared on the main stage were from the community and from the region as a whole.”
Ste revealed that this move had been well received – giving organisers the confidence to continue in the same vein this time round.
“We received some incredible feedback from those individuals and the attendees of the event,” he added.
“Ensuring a wide range of styles of music and genres, dance performances, and multi-cultural experiences meant that everyone across the weekend was exposed to something new, an act or artist they’d never seen before.”
Ste asked the attendees at the event to give their support to the festival and is now promoting the paid opportunities that are available.
“We are hoping that people will get involved and apply to take part in what is one of the biggest events on the LGBTQ+ calendar,” he said.
“Once again we will be delivering a festival over a massive 14 acre site on Newcastle Town Moor as well as our Pride March which gets bigger and bigger every year.
“We can’t wait for people to sign up.”
Northern Pride Festival 2023 will run over the weekend of July 22-23.
Further information and the application form is available HERE