HOW COVID-19 WILL CHANGE OUR COMMUNITY FOREVER.
In March of this year, Matthew Walton, the chair of Pride in Hull, had to make the decision to cancel this year’s event. Like many event organisers, he had been monitoring the increasing threat of COVID-19 and he had hoped that it could be postponed. Yet, as the severity and long-term implications of the pandemic became apparent, cancelation became inevitable.
“It’s always a difficult decision to cancel an event,” he says over the phone. “But we had an in-depth conversation with our board of trustees, talked through what all the options were and, ultimately, felt that we were in a good position of where we were in our planning process to be able to put a halt on preparations without leaving us out of pocket.”
Pride in Hull is one in a number of Pride events outside of London that has grown in popularity in the last few years. In 2017, after Hull was named the UK City of Culture, the previously small, community-led event, bloomed. “Our audience just quadrupled in the space of 12 months,” Walton recalls, “and that audience has stayed with us.”
If you visit Hull in the lead up to Pride, almost every building is adorned with rainbow flags, and on the day of the parade and festival itself it feels like everyone comes out in support of the city’s LGBTQ+ community. For many, Walton says, “attending Pride is the one day of the year that LGBTQ+ people feel comfortable to be themselves in their home city”.
This year things will be different. Following the government guidelines regarding COVID-19 and the lockdown measures that have
