I read the stories that surrounded the scaling-down of this year's WorldPride with a sense of dread and just a little déjà vu. I was part of the bidding team to bring WorldPride to London and, until I retired after last year's event to give time to other projects, had been involved in the running of London's various pride events for a dozen or so years. What struck and upset me most was that we had been here before so many times. In the time I've been involved there has been a parade of organizations running, and ultimately failing to run pride in London and as we start to plan again what we want our pride to look like in 2013 it's vital we learn the lessons of the past.
There are many public meetings taking place at the moment (including the largest, this Wednesday at Heaven Nightclub) to discuss the future and that's exciting. In this great cycle of pride there are always plenty of opinions on what was wrong with this years' event after it takes place, but fewer ideas before the event. I have sat through countless half-empty outreach meetings over the years attended mostly by the same keen few. Some of the blame for this must be placed firmly with the organizations that have run pride, but I guess holding meetings to hear what you are doing wrong is seldom top of people's must-do lists. There has also been a lack of constructive criticism organized externally like we are seeing now. Whoever runs pride next shouldn't even need to think about the public meetings and debates. What has appeared this year must continue, and should continue to be organised independently of pride.
Which brings us on to the thorny issue of "who owns pride?". Of course the answer is no-one, but to listen to many critics in recent months you'd think it had been stolen away from "us". 'Reclaim pride' is a popular rhetoric, and like many reclaim movements you have to ask from whom and for whom? Over the years pride in London has been run by either a commercial organization or by a community group or charity. Even when a commercial organization has run something like a park event, as in the case of Mardi Gras, there has been strong community involvement particularly in the running of the parade. No one takes pride by force; it is almost always that no one else volunteers to run it. You don't need to reclaim pride you just need to come up with a more popular or viable plan for it.
Many have asserted in the last couple of weeks that pride should be run by professionals. Again this is curious as it depends how you define professional. I have volunteered over the years with a very small handful of people who have such extensive experience of running one of the world's larger parades that there is no doubt they could be described as professionals. I suspect what many, and again this is a subject that will need debating, mean by professional is paid employees. I couldn't agree more; for pride to thrive there needs to be a contingent of staff. It's possible to run with just volunteers, but it means many jobs get ignored or forgotten. The most important thing though is to bring in expertise and not just enthusiasm. We still don't know what exactly went wrong with this year's event but if it was, as we're lead to believe, a failing of fundraising and cashflow then experts in those fields should have been sitting on the board.
The only comments circulating that puzzle me are the assertions that pride has become commercial; pride should be more commercial, or; pride shouldn't be commercial. In particular the assertion that pride shouldn't be commercial is a puzzling one. Putting on pride in the centre of our city is an expensive business - boring things like toilets, barriers and security all add up to well over half a million pounds for the day and that's before you add any flourishes. Personally I don't want to see sponsor logos plastered all over the event, but I'd take discrete branding in return for the event remaining free and open to all. For those who want to see it more commercial I'm OK with that too, but it's not a model with a 100% successful track record either. Pride London was setup as a charity in 2004 to rescue the event after Mardi Gras, the commercial collaboration than included owners of gay magazines and large gay clubs on its board, went bankrupt.
My blueprint for pride is simple - let the experts run each element of pride. The one lesson I believe I've learnt over the years is that we've always put everything in to one tidy organization, put some people in charge and, as a community, mostly forgotten about it until it goes wrong.
I'd like to see the parade move to Friday night. It could continue to be run by the volunteers who know how to run a large parade. They'll need help with its appearance such as floats and decoration, and I'm dying to see a viewing area and prizes so we can get competitive - maybe there are set designers and costume specialists from Notting Hill who can help? I'd follow the parade with a small political rally in Trafalgar Square or one of the parks. Nothing flash just a platform and some microphones.
I'd give the Saturday over to a street party in Soho. The Soho Business Association has become a formidable force and would be the natural body to run this. Have small stages dotted around the area for entertainment.
On the Sunday, for those needing their music fix, a commercial music festival could be arranged in one of the parks. This can be run by one of the experts such as Mama Group and would be ticketed to cover costs. Trafalgar Square is too small for big acts, and frankly pride has failed to secure these anyway.
Obviously all of this would need to be coordinated by some sort of committee or body, but that body doesn't need to be running pride itself - it is there to oversee on behalf of us all and scrutinise the plans and finances of each day to ensure it will succeed. For me, by devolving pride it may live to fight another day. If we put yet another organization in charge of the whole lot it may be a few years, but history will inevitably repeat itself.