MANCHESTER PRIDE INVESTIGATION

IN THE BEGINNING

As the event celebrates its 18th birthday, let's begin with a quick look back at the very first, on August Bank Holiday weekend, 1990.

It's 1990 and the first August Bank Holiday event on the cobbles of Canal Street

Over the years, Manchester's August Bank Holiday gay event has been known as the Carnival of Fun, Mardi Gras, GayFest, Manchester Europride and Manchester Pride. It started off 19 years ago with the sole purpose of raising money for HIV and AIDS causes, including the ward at Monsall hospital.

But things have changed. Here is a quote from the Charity Commission, which I received from them in writing in May 2007:

Who is Marketing Manchester? On its website it describes itself as 'the tourist board' and ‘a company limited by guarantee’.

THE SET-UP: 2003-2006

In 2003, it was decided that charities would sell tickets and collect money under the name Operation Fundraiser (a name that had existed prior to 2003) and that (a very large) part of this money would be handed over to cover the costs of running the Pride event. To all intents and purposes, the money was handed over to Marketing Manchester, although a 'not-for-profit' company had been set up in 2003 called Manchester Europride.

Eventually it came to light that Manchester Europride didn't even have its own business accounts. It shared them with Marketing Manchester -- the tourist board.

Figures for the number of tickets sold each year are almost impossible to come by, probably because much of the overhyped publicity would be blown out of the water if they were in the public domain.

However, in the October 2004 issue of Outnorthwest magazine, Paul Martin of the Lesbian and Gay Foundation refers to the '36,000' who attended Manchester Pride 2004.

In 2003, £200,000 of ticket and bucket collection money was handed over by Operation Fundraiser to Manchester Europride (Marketing Manchester). Operation Fundraiser deducted its own running costs (£59,520) from what was left and gave out the remainder (£129,426) to good causes.

If 36,000 people bought a ticket in 2003, that would be income of £360,000 from tickets alone. The £129,426 figure for good causes would represent about 36% of that ticket income.

In addition, Manchester Europride received money from advertisers, sponsors and donations which also went on the running costs of the event.

In 2004, the not-for-profit company was renamed Manchester Pride and, being a 'new' company, it enjoyed extra time to file its business accounts.

From 2004 onwards, 50% of all ticket and bucket money was handed over by Operation Fundraiser, which then took its own substantial running costs out of the 50% that was left.

FAT CAT BUSINESSES GRAB £22M OF EXTRA INCOME

Meanwhile, big business was doing very nicely thank you. The official estimate from Manchester City Council for extra income to businesses thanks to Pride was £20m in 2003 (mentioned here and also here in the Manchester Evening News). One year the estimate was as high as £22m but now in 2009 is put at about £17m.

The 2007 figure of £95,000 for good causes was one of the lowest for many years. While the city's businesses made tens of millions for themselves as usual.

In 2006, Operation Fundraiser's position became untenable after HM Customs and Excise decided that Pride was no longer a charity event and hadn't been since 2003. Pride was charged back VAT (sales tax) of £56,000 on the years 2004, 2005 and 2006. Needless to say, the businesses didn't cough up, it came out of the 2006 charity money, leaving just £65,000 for good causes.

Don't believe the devious organisers, who try to blame this on the tax man. It is the organisers of Pride themselves and the city council who allowed our event to stray so far from its original charity fundraising purpose.

In September 2009 I was given new information about the VAT issue. It seems that an appeal against the VAT charge was successful eventually.

The LGF and George House Trust had decided not to take any money from the diminished charity amount in 2006 and, when the £56,000 VAT sum was 'recovered', the two charities divided the money between themselves.

Curiously, in December 2009, the Manchester Pride website still listed the 2006 figure as £126,000 'but only £70,000 distributed to Charity', and with no explanation for this. This is hardly transparent and proof that they want to keep this embarrassing story under wraps.

GAY PRESS AND LOCAL MEDIA NOT DOING THEIR JOB

The astonishing thing is that, to the best of my knowledge, the VAT issue with the taxman was never reported anywhere other than here on my website. Nor was the successful appeal or the dividing of the money reported. Though details may have figured in the publicly-available accounts of the two charities.

The public was left in the dark, believing that just £65,0o0 (or £70,000) had been raised for good causes in 2006. Possibly because to do otherwise would have focused unwelcome attention on to what the taxman had said about Pride not being a charity event.

Compare this to the avalanche of positive promotion that Manchester Pride receives each year in the gay and mainstream press.

The tourist board, local newspapers and local gay reporters are all on the Pride gravy train and are unwilling to report anything that might derail it or upset those who are in power.

The Manchester Evening News was a 'media partner' in 2009 and has a long history of publishing over-inflated, physically impossible attendance figures for Pride.

MISLEADING LEAFLETS

I began to scrutinise Operation Fundraiser's publicity material.

Such as this leaflet from 2004 which, at first glance, shows 'how your money was spent' and a 100% pie chart.

But, take a closer look... It actually starts out with a net proceeds figure, after 50% of Operation Fundraiser's income has been handed over to Manchester Pride/Marketing Manchester to cover costs. The sum that was handed over was £165,596, the same as the net proceeds figure. Read more...

Lots of people won't know what net proceeds means or won't notice. This misleading leaflet makes the final charity amount look like a larger percentage of the income than it really was and makes 'expenditure' seem smaller.

Money that Manchester Pride itself received directly from advertisers, sponsors and donations doesn't feature on this leaflet at all. That income also went on running costs.

FROM 100% TO 30%

In 2002, one of the charities involved in Operation Fundraiser, George House Trust, told the public: '100% of what is donated over the weekend will go to charities with noting (sic) deducted for administrative expenses or the cost of the event.'

In fact, as we've seen, the very next year (2003), a staggering £200,000 of the ticket and collection bucket money that had been collected by Operation Fundraiser was handed over to Manchester Europride to cover costs. Plus Operation Fundraiser spent a further £59,520 on, guess what? Its own costs.

In the publicity for 2003, the public was told that 'all ticket sales for the weekend go directly to Operation Fundraiser'.

Hardly surprisingly then, that many people in Manchester are confused and even now believe that that 'all' Operation Fundraiser money went to good causes.

In some leaflets, Operation Fundraiser used the word 'raised' to mean the money left after costs had been taken off.

In other leaflets it used the word 'raised' to mean before costs had been taken off.

What the jargon phrase 'community futures' means in the screengrab above, I don't know, but 50% of money raised by Operation Fundraiser was certainly not reaching charitable causes in the end because Operation Fundraiser was taking out its own substantial running costs from that remaining 50%.

QUITE A COINCIDENCE

In 2003, Operation Fundraiser's own costs were £59,520 and in 2004 they were £79,982. A 30% increase in costs in one year and leaving a final figure for good causes in 2004 that is just £1,736 more than the previous year.

Quite a coincidence and many people have pointed out that for four years (2003-2006) the charity amount remained much the same each year while ticket prices rose, but costs did too. A cynic might wonder if costs were being arranged around a set amount to be left for charity.

CHARITY AMOUNTS

2009: £135,000 (pay event)

2008: £105,000 (pay event)

2007: £95000 (pay event)
2006: £121,000 eventually, after challenging a £56,000 VAT bill (pay event)
2005: £120,772 (pay event)
2004: £129,426 (pay event)
2003: £127,690 (pay event)
2002: £65,000 (free event)
2001: £70,000 or £100,000 - reports vary (free event)
2000: £105,000 (free event)
1999: zero raised (pay event - the first year with the ‘pledgeband’/wristband)

To cover up the small charity amounts and further confuse people, they began to add together several years in their publicity. As in this poster, which shows a total of all the amounts from the years 2003-2006 (minus the VAT bill)

Is all the above just cock-up or is it conspiracy? Certainly, tricky and contradictory text and confusing leaflets often gave the public only half the story and it's hard to imagine that wasn't deliberate. Questions were ignored completely or the organisers were evasive. 'Why do you want to know?' I was asked on one occasion. I wanted to know because this event was being sold to the public as a charity fundraiser.

In fact the whole arrangement from 2003 until 2006 seems to have been designed to use the good names of the charities to squeeze the maximum amount of cash from the public.

Most of which was then handed over to Manchester Pride/the tourist board and paid out in costs to businesses that supplied various services, or was spent on other running costs.

How many of us realised, when putting a pound into an Operation Fundraiser collection bucket, that more than two-thirds of that money went to cover 'costs' and not to a good cause?

But don't expect to read anything other than a glowing retrospective of Operation Fundraiser in the gay press.

A CHANGE IN 2007

In 2007 things changed. Operation Fundraiser 'hung up its buckets', before things got even hotter, and Manchester Pride became a charity in its own right.

In publicity this was portrayed as Manchester Pride fulfilling a long held dream to become a charity in its own right. In truth, the set up with Operation Fundraiser had become untenable once both the tax man and Charity Commission had said that Pride was no longer a charity fundraising event.

Some things didn't change however. The current Chair of Manchester Pride is also Chief Executive of Marketing Manchester... (and as of March 2010 he is also Chair of the Village Business Association).

In 2007 the new set-up got off to a bad start. Tickets prices were the highest ever -- some people paid £18 -- and just £95,000 was left for good causes.

The income and costs became clearer. Manchester Pride had income of £803,000 and running costs of £708,000.

Pride makes much of the fact that it is 'non-profit'. However, 'costs' are money that is paid out to profit-making businesses: security guards, equipment hire, performers, printers, street cleaners. Also to the police.

Greater Manchester Police gives a small token donation to Manchester Pride but then charges the event a much larger sum for policing. Lots of people are now on this lucrative cash-stuffed gravy train.

Compare those £708,000 costs in 2007 to the reported cost of £106,000 for the free-to-enter Mardi Gras back in 2002.

Businesses make a vast amount of money from Pride, but they want the public to finance it, if they can get away with that.

12% OF TOTAL INCOME WENT TO GOOD CAUSES IN 2007

One body (Manchester Pride) now deals with all the income (tickets, collections, sponsors, advertisers etc) and all the costs.

12% of Manchester Pride's total income went to good causes in 2007. However, this percentage is not directly comparable with previous years, when ticket money went through Operation Fundraiser and sponsorship and other income went direct to Manchester Pride which spent it on costs.

To make a more accurate comparison with previous years, if we reckon the typical 35,000 tickets were sold, at an average of £14 each, it comes to £490,000 from tickets.

If gross income from tickets was £490,000, then £95,000 for good causes would represent about 19.5% of that ticket income figure. Which must be one of the lowest percentages ever.

Even if we take off £75,000 to cover the costs of the ticket operation (as Operation Fundraiser did in previous years), leaving £415,000, £95,000 for charity is still only about 23% of that figure.

BUSINESSES PROFIT MASSIVELY WHILE GIVING LITTLE: A LOOK AT THE UNICHALLENGE CLUB NIGHT

Businesses across Manchester profit from Pride and not just those that are based in the gay village. Hotels, shops, restaurants, taxi firms, travel companies and airlines also benefit and most of those contribute nothing at all to the running costs. One way they would do is if the City Council gave a larger donation to the running costs of Pride.

In 2004 the UniChallenge club night sold 4,500 tickets at £20 each. Giving the promoters income of £90,000 just from admissions alone. A figure that is nearly as much as the total raised for good causes from the entire Pride event in 2007.

In 2004, UniChallenge gave a pitiful £1 from each ticket to Operation Fundraiser.

However, as already mentioned, about 70% of Operation Fundraiser's income ended up being spent on the costs of running the Pride event and its own costs that year.

So, after costs, probably 30p from each of those £20 UniChallenge tickets reached a final good cause in 2004.

Now it's even less. With all income going into one Manchester Pride pot of money, including the UniChallenge donation, and just 12% of that Pride cash left for charity, we can see that, in 2007, just 12p from each £22 UniChallenge ticket was distributed to a final charity.

It would be far better if UniChallenge donated the £1 direct to another, more efficient, charity. The percentage is quite obscene when you think about it, although other club nights seem to give nothing at all.

In 2008 the price of a ticket for Unichallenge increased to £23, with still just a £1 donation to Manchester Pride. Compare that to Monday 26 August 1991 when the club Rockies gave 50% of its door money to good causes...

The 2009 UniChallenge website states: 'while you're all partying over Manchester Pride's Big Weekend remember why we're actually here to celebrate Pride... it's to raise money for charity!'

Oh really? In 2009, the UniChallenge website didn't even mention how much would be donated from each ticket (they cost £23 + booking fee in advance, or more on the door). But it does boast that 'over the past 10 years the money raised from Uni Challenge has exceeded £56,000'.

That old trick of adding together lots of years to make the number more impressive...

If you're a penniless student or on the dole that may sound like a large figure. But, as we've seen, in terms of the amount these people rake in on the door each year, it isn't much at all and Pride spends most of the donation on costs (ie. it goes out into the pockets of businesses).

This Autumn we'll be writing to ask UniChallenge how much it gave to charity in 2009, so stay tuned.

Events should start giving their donations direct to a charity and not to Manchester Pride, which now spends 88% of income on costs.

COSTS CAN KEEP ON RISING UNTIL ENOUGH PEOPLE COMPLAIN

Manchester Pride is now a charity in its own right. But the Charity Commission says there are no rules about what percentage of income can be spent on costs. There is no minimum percentage that must go to the good causes. The Commission says it is up to the public to complain if dissatisfied.

Often the charity aspect of Pride is used to try and deflect any criticism. How dare you criticise a charity! This is what is so clever about the set up that has existed since 2003. Ever growing sums are demanded from the public. Costs increase way above the rate of inflation each year and that money is filtered out to profit-making businesses for services rendered. All in the name of 'charity'.

In 2008 the price of an 'early bird' ticket increased by 25%. The previous year the period for buying an early bird ticket had been greatly reduced. Pride admitted that running costs had doubled between 2004 and 2007. A 660% increase in running costs since 2002 (£106,000 in 2002 and £708,000 in 2007). More here.

MANCHESTER CITY COUNCIL'S DOUBLE STANDARDS

The City Council gave more than £2m towards the running costs of Manchester's International Festival in 2007. It gives just tens of thousands to Pride, which is then charged for services such as street cleaning (a £13,000 cost in 2002). As with the Police, this is a smoke and mirrors trick: giving with one hand (and getting the good publicity for supporting the LGBT community) but taking back with the other.

The International Festival was expected to bring in £32m of extra business to the city, while we're told that Pride brings in £22m of extra business some years.

Considering those benefits, why is it that the LGBT community must finance one to such an extent, whereas mainly the city council and businesses (through rates) finance the other?

Who paid for the policing and clean up for the disasterous Glasgows Rangers celebration in Piccadilly in 2008, during which abusive football fans, who don't even live in Manchester, partied, trashed the city centre and fought with the police? And all without having to buy a ticket to do it.

I would go as far as to say that this financial targeting of our community is a kind of victimisation.

WE'RE EVEN PAYING THE TOURIST BOARD!

You might think that the tourist board (AKA Marketing Manchester) would be very grateful for the up-to-£22m of extra income that Manchester Pride brings to the city and its businesses each year?

In 2008, we coughed up about £600,000 — two-thirds of the total Pride income — to run this giant tourist bonanza for the city and its businesses.

But no… Take a look at page 21 of the 2007/08 Manchester Pride accounts (PDF) and you’ll see that Pride paid £6,040 to Marketing Manchester for ‘normal commercial services’. Whereas Pride invoiced Marketing Manchester just £92.

I wondered what these 'commercial services' could be and can now reveal that Marketing Manchester charges Manchester Pride some £6,000 a year for doing its accounts.

THE CHARITY COMMISSION

In late 2005 I contacted The Charity Commission and it started an investigation into Operation Fundraiser and Manchester Pride.

Over the following months I sent further information and, each time, the Charity Commission replied saying that it could not comment on an ongoing investion. Which was fine, as I was happy to wait.

However, by February 2007, there was still no conclusion and I hadn't heard anything for a year. So I wrote again.

To cut the story short, it turned out the Charity Commission had 'lost' the file of its investigation.

I was put under pressure to discuss the whole thing on the telephone, rather than have anything in writing. However, eventually, I did receive an email in May 2007. This explained that the file was still missing and 'in the meantime' the Commission could only confirm its 'recollections of the case'.

The Charity Commission promised to contact me when it found the file. But nearly three years later I am still waiting. If you think this sounds suspicious and unprofessional, I would agree with you.

However, there was some result. Operation Fundraiser was told that the set-up had to be made clearer to the public and that it should account for the income gross and not net. Whether this had any bearing on Manchester Pride becoming a charity in its own right, I don't know.

HUGELY EXAGGERATED CROWD FIGURES

Over the years, crowd figures for the Saturday Pride parade and for attendance in the gay village itself have been hugely exaggerated. Sometimes by as much as 500% and to be fair this goes way back to 1999 and probably beyond.

These false figures have been sent out to the press, some sections of which published them apparently without any analysis or thought.

There are two possibilities...

For years, the Pride organisers, Manchester City Council, the tourist board, local press and national gay media simply didn't bother to do the few simple calculations and measurements that reveal that the published figures are physically impossible (it took me just a few minutes to do the sums).

Or... Some of the above knew that the figures were false and yet still published them because it suited their purposes.

Either way, the fact that the public can be misled to this extent, for a decade, should ring alarm bells. Some of these publications end up in libraries as the historical record of local events, so people will continue to be grossly misled about how large Pride was in Manchester for years to come.

HARD EVIDENCE IN THE FORM OF INCOME FIGURES FAILS TO SUPPORT OVER-INFLATED CLAIMS FOR ATTENDANCE

This article from the Manchester Evening News claims that '300,000' were expected in Manchester for Europride in 2003. However Operation Fundraiser only collected £387,210 from wristband sales and collection buckets that year. There was no entry to the fenced off gay village without a £10 wristband/ticket. So the total amount collected suggests that, in reality, less than 39,000 tickets were sold -- little more than one tenth of the hyped 'expected' number.

Manchester City Council was also involved in this deception. Its Manchester Update website claimed that 300,000 people were expected at Manchester Europride 2003. The website has now disappeared, but you can see an archived copy of the page here. The manchesterupdate.org.uk domain name is still registered to 'Manchester City Council'.

The 2003 article adds: 'with ticket sales at this stage looking extremely robust, the Operation Fundraiser target of £30,000 to charities and organisations looks realistic. ' Did the person who wrote this really think that just £30,000 for charity from 300,000 visitors would be either 'realistic' or satisfactory? That would be an average of 10p for charity from each visitor...

THE PARADE

My analysis of the rather short parade route, which has always followed one of two different routes, and was just 2,270 yards/1.3 miles long in 2007, suggests that probably only 50,000 people are on the narrow city streets watching it. Many of whom have also bought a ticket to get into the gay village. So where were the 300,000 people in 2003? The answer is, they never existed.

There are numerous other examples of the crowd figures being grossly exaggerated.

But please don't take my word for it. On the page linked below there are maps and links to satellite images on Google Maps, so you can measure the length of the parade route and the width of Manchester's Victorian streets for yourself.

The streets are only about 15 yards wide from building to building along almost the entire parade route. The crowd figures the organisers and some sections of the media quote (often 200,000 or 250,000 here in the Manchester Evening News) are physically impossible, even if the full width of every street (pavement and road) was filled with people along the entire parade route.

After the 1999 Mardi Gras the organisers claimed that more than 600,000 spectators were 'on the streets' for the parade. A figure that is more than one quarter of the entire population of Greater Manchester (pop. 2.2m). The organisers told this gigantic lie in a leaflet ( above) which they published after Mardi Gras to 'explain' why it raised no money at all for charity that year.

Read more about the fake crowd figures.

PROPPING UP TOURISM AND THE EXISTING ORGANISERS

These fake figures are intended to make Manchester Pride seem much more popular than it really is. Indeed, in this PDF document, the North West Regional Development Agency describes Manchester 'Gay' Pride as 'one of the biggest Pride events in Europe'.

However Berlin Pride claims to attract 400,000 people, while Manchester Pride sells only about 35,000 tickets and I reckon 50,000 watch the parade (many of them ticket buyers). The BBC says tens of thousands at the parade and the Associated Press put the figure at 45,000 (and provoked an outcry when it published the truth).

You see the problem for Manchester's marketeers and tourist chiefs...

TRADING STANDARDS STEP IN

In June 2008, Trading Standards asked Manchester Pride about its published attendance figures. Pride admitted it could not substantiate them and agreed to remove from its website references to 200,000 or 250,000 people watching the Saturday parade.

Were these figures a mistake or a deliberate attempt to mislead the public over the years?

The organisers had been aware that many of their crowd figures were physically impossible and therefore untrue since at least February 2007, when the issue was brought to their attention. However the existing pages remained online and the same old inflated numbers were even published in new press releases and on web pages for 2008. So they knowingly continued to mislead the public and advertisers for sixteen months until Trading Standards investigated.

It's all a desperate attempt to promote the city of Manchester, business and tourism, regardless of any other considerations (such as honesty). The aim is to hold onto control of Pride. The more people they can claim attend, the greater their mandate to continue running the event.

Powerful vested interests (business owners, marketeers, politicians, the city council and probably some even less savoury characters) want to prevent debate on the future of Pride and the discussion of possible alternatives that might be less commercial.

56 OXFORD STREET

As already mentioned, in 2003, Manchester Europride (as it was then known) didn't have its own business accounts. They were part of Marketing Manchester's accounts. That year, Operation Fundraiser handed over £200,000 of money it had collected from the public (in the form of ticket sales and bucket collections) to Manchester Europride/Marketing Manchester to cover the costs of running the event.

Manchester Pride and Marketing Manchester (the tourist board) shared an office until mid-2007. Not just an office, but the same telephone, fax number and same email addresses.

TICKET PRICES CONTINUE TO RISE WITH CONCESSIONS REDUCED

2008 saw a 25% increase in the price of an 'early bird' ticket: £12.50 compared to £10 in 2007. Reduced price tickets were only available until 14 July 2008.

2006 had seen a 'stealth' increase in cost, as the period for buying an early bird ticket was greatly reduced.

In 2005, early bird tickets were available until 22 August (four days before the event started) when they increased in price to £15. However, in 2006, tickets cost £15 from 17 July (six weeks before Pride began) and it's been the same ever since.

Back in 1999 there were reduced price tickets for those who were unemployed or on a low income. But no such concessions have existed since entry charges were reintroduced in 2003.

In a survey done by Manchester Pride itself in 2008, 53 people (6.9% of all respondents ) said they didn't attend the event and, of those, 11 people (20.75% of those not attending) said it was because they 'were unable to afford the ticket price'.

When the issue of cost of attending and exclusion was raised at the LGBT Labour discussion just before Manchester Pride 2009, Emma Peate the Fundraising Manager of the Lesbian and Gay Foundation suggested that it compared favourably to the cost of attending the Glastonbury pop festival. Which gives an insight into the thinking behind Manchester Pride.

Another popular response is that it's 'only' £10 or £15 and that 'isn't much'. Though, if you're unemployed it's about a quarter of your weekly income and, of course, the cost of the ticket is just the beginning. There are door entry charges and inflated drinks prices.

If you divide the £22m of extra income that Pride brings in for businesses by 35,000 (the number of tickets sold) you get an average spend of £629 per person. Or if you take the lower figure of £17.5m of extra income it works out at £500 per person. Many of us know people who spend that much.

THE 2007 POSTER

Things really hit rock bottom in 2007 when the Manchester Pride poster didn't even include the words gay, lesbian, bi or transgender. Just the abbreviation 'LGBT' in tiny print.

However there was room to include the logos of Manchester City Council and West Properties -- the developers behind the controversial tower that is about to overshadow the gay village (credit crunch permitting) and which a large proportion of the local LGBT community is against.

Almost a decade earlier, a local radio station's failure to signpost the event as LGBT in its broadcasts, was blamed as a major cause of homophobic abuse and violence by bigots who turned up. The station Key103 was a sponsor but clearly didn't want to upset listeners by mentioning nasty words like 'gay' and 'lesbian' on air.

After we'd published a video about the 2007 poster on YouTube, the writer of a comment recalled how one ill-informed straight youth had told him: 'Manchester Pride is nothing to do with gays'.

In 2008 the full words were back on the poster. Hooray.

GET BENT! 2007

In 2007, a collective of people organised the week-long non-profit Get Bent! festival. The programme included a day of performances by bands, two film shows, talks, workshops, a fancy dress club night and two cabaret nights. It was a huge success. The entire budget was about £500.

Get Bent! wasn't anti-Pride. The collective included people with completely different views on the subject. Nor was 2007 the first Get Bent! It happened in previous years along with an event called Twee Pride.

Although many of the people who helped organise Get Bent! were young, to me it felt like a very inclusive festival.

ACTIVISTS INVADE THE BALLOON LAUNCH AT MANCHESTER PRIDE 2008

Watch the six minute video (super-widescreen format). It includes two minutes of exclusive archive footage of August Bank Holiday 1991.

The easy ride that Manchester Pride had enjoyed for five years came to an abrupt end in 2008 when activists from Pride Is A Protest invaded the opening balloon launch of Pride.

The Lord Mayor, politicians and the city's tourism chief (who is also Chair of Manchester Pride) found themselves flanked by banners complaining about commercialisation and lack of inclusion. Slogans included: 'Pride not profit', 'F**k the pink pound' and 'Pride as a protest or Pride as a corporate scam?'.

A trailer to embed and share can be found here on YouTube.

A few days later, BBC Radio Manchester interviewed one of the protestors and the invasion probably kickstarted much of the very welcome discussion that occured during Pride in 2008.

This included another ground shaking moment at the end of Pride week when the chairman of the (gay) Village Business Association spoke out and described Manchester Pride as 'a marketing event run by dictators'. It was now 'just about money' he said. In the days that followed, several businesses and charities backed him.

ATTEMPT TO CENSOR BANNERS AT THE 2008 PRIDE PARADE

Just before the 2008 Manchester Pride parade set off, the festival organiser was captured on video as she tried to confiscate a banner from the Pride Is A Protest and Queer Youth Network parade entry. The banner read 'Pride Not Profit'.

TICKET SCANDAL AT THE CANDLELIGHT VIGIL

The HIV/AIDS Candlelight Vigil on the final night of Pride has always been a key event and, to some people, the most important part. People go to it to remember friends, lovers and family who have died.

When fences were first put up and tickets introduced for Pride, the community was assured that entry to the Vigil would always remain free and open to all.

However, we kept hearing stories about people being told they had to buy an expensive Pride ticket to attend the Vigil. So, in both 2007 and 2008, we filmed secretly, recording sound with a hidden microphone and video footage from a distance.

We approached various gates and the ticket office and captured clear evidence on tape that showed the stories were true.

We found that people without a Pride ticket were made to queue on the street for a long time to get into the Vigil, while ticket holders walked in ahead of them. Some of these people were there to remember lost friends, lovers and relatives and they were treated with disrespect.

We recorded security guards and even the ticket office telling our reporter that a ticket had to be bought to attend the Vigil.

This wasn't part of the plan, but by sheer coincidence in 2007 our reporter was wearing a large rucksack and was allowed to walk straight into the fenced off gay village at the New Union gate without any examination of it. This was just two months after the Glasgow airport terrorist attack and it showed that the idea that the fences are there to protect everyone is a sham.

But no surprise, as many people believe that the fences at Pride are as much about penning LGBT people in beside various businesses (many of which increase their prices during the weekend) as they are about keeping undesirables out.

Due to the Vigil being a sensitive subject, so far we have decided not to publish the video footage (except for one small clip) and, instead, we made its existence known to the organisers of Manchester Pride.

In 2009 we tested the ticket office once again and were glad to find that we were given the correct information: that no ticket was needed for the Vigil. If you had a different experience in 2009, let us know.

However we noted that, once again, people without tickets were made to queue on the street (and in the rain) for a long time. Some had been told to turn up at 19.00 hours and waited for 90 minutes.

2009

Manchester Pride 2009 raised £135,000 for good causes. This was hyped as the highest amount ever. But, when you take into account inflation, in real terms the sum is probably worth slightly less than the £105,000 that was raised by the much-smaller and free GayFest in 2000. The only things that ever seem to increase significantly are the ticket prices and costs.

2010

In March 2010, a new Chair of the Village Business Association was elected. The same person is now Chief Executive of Marketing Manchester (AKA the tourist board), Chair of Manchester Pride and Chair of the VBA.

REAL ALTERNATIVES?

Although there was an outcry about Mardi Gras in 1999, for several years after that there was little criticism or discussion except on my own websites. It seemed that no one was interested. So recent protests and alternatives are welcome and it's good to see so many young people taking part. However, there are some concerns.

In particular we must be careful that we don't just swap one narrowly-focused event that excludes many people, for an alternative that does the same or even worse.

Also we need to look at the motives behind some protests because, when it came down to presenting themselves in the media, in the end both Pride Is A Protest in 2008 and Reclaim the Scene in 2009 chose to focus on their youth and student credentials and that was despite the involvement of people who didn't fit that demographic.

Manchester's gay village and Manchester Pride are overwhelmingly aimed towards the under 30's: an age group that tends to like loud bars and clubs, drinking alcohol and has plenty of disposable income. The cynical commercially-driven desire to exploit that market is the reason why Pride is now little more than a pop festival and beerfest. With a bit of 'feel-good' charity fundraising thrown in.

Of course, this is a generalisation: some young people and students don't like those things and some are excluded on the grounds of cost and there are a few hardcore older LGBT people (especially gay men) who still go on the scene. But to pretend, as some activists have in the past, that young people and students are probably the 'most' excluded from the 'scene' and Pride is disingenous and actually quite sinister.

Sinister because these are the same tactics that the businesses and organisers of Pride use: they marginalise and ignore large groups of people that don't fit their agenda.

The majority of LGBT adults in Britain are aged over 30. In fact a majority is aged over 40. But where are they? In many respects these people are invisible on the scene, at Pride and in our gay media. At the LGBT Labour discussion just before Pride 2009, Sue Sanders of LGBT History Month talked about how older lesbians are effectively 'invisible' in our community.

Currently older people are invisible in the protests too. Reclaim the Scene talks about how students, young people, the homeless and 'many parents' are excluded. No offence to those groups, but this is a sideshow. How many LGBT people are parents and excluded from Pride? A tiny minority when compared to the vast number (maybe 60% of all LGBT adults) who are aged over 40 and who feel that Pride and the scene offer them nothing.

So what about some priorities? But older people aren't a trendy cause for students and there seems to be the assumption that if you're older then you're automatically well-off, powerful and capable of looking after yourself.

Reclaim the Scene also takes a political stance. Positioning itself as pro-union and anti-Tory. Like the student focus, these are things that discourage a lot of people from getting involved. All of which means that, currently, RTS is not an alternative that everyone can feel comfortable being part of.

ERRORS AND MISINFORMATION

As Manchester Pride has found out, if you publish misinformation, whether deliberately or by mistake, it may make you look good in the short term. But, in this searchable internet age, sooner or later it will come back and bite you on the arse. Unfortunately some of the current protesters haven't wised up to that and it undermines the real facts.

Lately I've seen my own research and writing cherry-picked, copied and pasted to enhance personal and political agendas that sometimes have very little to do with Pride and often without any proper acknowledgement for my website. Readers are left in the dark about where a particular quote or snippet originates from, which doesn't help move things forward or give clarity.

Quotes are used without any attribution or context and it is justified on the basis that the information is in the 'public domain', while at the same time mates who have also climbed aboard the Pride protest bandwagon are name-checked. There is a reluctance to mention events (eg. Twee Pride and Get Bent!) and protests that went before.

As if the truth and real figures aren't bad enough, some people have felt the need to exaggerate, spread false information and smear certain people, while hiding behind anonymity on the web. On one blog, a prominent person was labelled a 'fraudster'.

Let's be clear... I've found lots of things that I think are a disgrace, but nothing criminal so far. Yes the shocking thing is that it's all legal and those who we might think would step in and do or say something choose not to and look the other way instead.

THE GAY & MAINSTREAM MEDIA

This may be the first time you've heard some of the facts and figures mentioned on this page, even though you read many gay magazines, newspapers and websites and the local press in Manchester. Ask yourself why that is.

Of course these days many journalists are rushed off their feet, with little time to do proper research and reporting, so often biased press releases end up being the source for 'news' stories.

Also there is growing concern about councils and even charities publishing their own free 'newspapers' when, at the same time, proper local newspapers are closing down.

THE FUTURE

There is a conflict of interest in the tourist board being so closely involved in the running of our Pride event. It leads to Pride being slanted towards those sections of the LGBT community and activities that are most profitable and therefore most attractive to businesses. Namely young gay men with a high disposable income and the consumption of alcohol.

Manchester needs a Pride that is not mainly a tourist attraction and profit machine for big business and the city council. One that is free, more inclusive of all LGBT people, not based entirely around alcohol and which raises more for good causes. There needs to be transparency and honesty, which are seriously lacking at the moment.

Maybe 25 years from now people will look back at what we allowed to happen to our LGBT community in Manchester and our August Bank Holiday charity fundraising event and will consider it to be a mistake of giant proportions? Perhaps it will be seen alongside the buy-to-let property boom, fat cat bankers and corrupt politicians -- just another part of the insane orgy of commercial and personal greed that has almost destroyed Britain over the past decade?

PHOTOS & VIDEO

Videos and photos from Pride 2004 can be found here. Pride 2005 here. I boycotted Pride 2006 because of the £50 charge for HIV charities to take part in the parade that year. 2007 video coming soon.

OTHER LINKS

Now Meet the Real Gay Mafia By Chris Morris and published in The New Statesman in 1999.

DOCUMENTS

If you have any old magazine or newspaper articles, press releases, leaflets or other documents that show the attendance figures or the charity amounts (especially from the years 1990-2002), I would love to hear from you. Contact me here.

THE FACTS & FIGURES ABOVE

I worked as a magazine journalist for 15 years. The information above and on the rest of my website is presented in good faith and a lot of time and effort has been spent to make it accurate to the best of my knowledge and ability.

But please don't take my word for it, do your own calculations on ticket sales, charity amounts and the parade distance and crowd numbers.

GOT A STORY TO TELL OR INFORMATION?

You can email me here if you have a comment, question or information to share (in complete confidence). Stories have been rolling in lately and will be investigated. Some I will be able to publish and others I won't!

If you're unhappy with the way Pride is or the way you've been treated, you could contact Manchester Pride, the Charity Commission, Manchester City Council, Trading Standards or your MP.

You can contact me here

All email is confidential. If you give information I will never identify you as the source, or publish anything that might do, without your permission.

Making a leaflet or web page?

If you use facts, figures or quote small extracts from my research please credit g7uk.com and make it clear exactly which parts are from my site. Sorry to be picky but some people aren't attributing quotes at all and others are using extracts in a vague way which is misleading and confusing for readers.

If you wish to use longer extracts or have a query about a photograph or video please contact me. Thanks.

SOME QUESTIONS THAT HAVE BEEN ASKED

Do you run other currently-updated websites or blogs that criticise Manchester Pride and the Lesbian & Gay Foundation or write for them anonymously?

No I don't. I have one other website which contains some history and criticism of Pride. But that content hasn't been updated or added to since 2006 and I plan to consolidate any critical stuff here on g7uk.com soon. Sometimes I post comments under articles on other sites, as everyone does. Pink News is one site where I have done that.

Recently (Sep 2009) it became clear that there is confusion about which sites I'm behind. I'm not sure how that confusion came about, but it seems it has led to me getting the 'blame' for certain content and I'm happy to put the record straight.

You have written something that I think may be factually incorrect

Let me know. Every page has a link to a contact form which you can use to email me and usually that will reach me within five minutes.

Do you hate [insert name of prominent person here]?

No I don't hate or 'have it in' for anyone. I think some of the people in our community have got used to a free ride and are unaccustomed to any criticism or being challenged. Even though some receive and handle huge amounts of public money.

Just because I question some of the things they do, that doesn't mean I hate them as an individual.

Why do you mainly only publish negative stories about Pride and the LGF?

These days the mainstream media and gay press rarely publish anything other than superficial stories about how wonderful everything it is. Many are little more than regurgitated press releases. The LGF has its own promotional magazine Outnorthwest which will never really criticise or hold Pride or the LGF to account.

I don't say that there aren't good aspects to Manchester Pride and the LGF but there is a vast amount of positive coverage out there already and my site doesn't need to add more. Instead I spend my time looking at the issues that don't get covered anywhere else.

Instead of moaning why don't you help Pride or run an alternative event?

I have done in the past. As long ago as 1991 I spent a week making a video to be sold to raise money for the Village Charity.

In 2007 I was part of the collective that organised the free, non-profit Get Bent! festival. It ran for ten days and the budget was about £500. Compare that to the £700,000 that Manchester Pride spends.

However I believe that commercial interests have no right to control Manchester's LGBT Pride event, fence off the gay village and charge for entry. Pride needs to change, regardless of what alternatives are around.

Why should anyone worry about what you write on a website?

The site is number three in the results on Google when searching for 'manchester pride' so a lot of people read it. Many realise that the gay press now presents an uncritical view, so are looking for an alternative voice and information which they find online.

One anonymous blog labelled a prominent figure a 'fraudster'. Do you condone that?

No I disapprove of it. In the research I have done I found no evidence that would, in my opinion, justify the use of that word against that particular person.

Sometimes it is necessary to mention certain inviduals as part of reporting. Other times I refer to them by their role or job. But I don't condone gratuitous personal attacks or abuse.

However I do believe there is a place for good-natured satire and humour.

Aren't you anonymous yourself?

Hardly, as this website is full of photographs of me. I write under a nickname but my identity is no secret and my real name can be discovered easily. Over the years I have been in touch with various people by letter, so they are aware of who I am and I have met several of the most prominent characters face to face.

Do you have a hidden agenda?

I don't think so. I'm not seeking fame, I'm not trying to make money out of this, promote a business, or trying to get some of the charity money to fund something. It's simply that I was there at the start and don't like the way things have gone over the last 10 years.

Do other protestors have a hidden agenda?

I do think that protesting about Manchester Pride has become a bit of a bandwagon over the past two years and some of the people who have jumped aboard have an ulterior motive. Some seem to be using it to increase their own profile of that of their group.

Some seem keen to rewrite history through omission. It's as if no alternative events happened in the past and no criticism existed before 2008. When in reality it has done for more than a decade.

They copy and paste content, use it to promote themselves and leave others to do the hard work behind the scenes, while they concentrate on quick high-profile stunts.

In the end anyone who doesn't fit the favoured profile is airbrushed out in the press releases and interviews. In that way these protests run the risk of being even more exclusionary than the thing they're protesting about. An 'alternative' which is presented in the media as entirely youth or student based isn't much of an alternative to our youth-obsessed scene and Pride at all.

Most LGBT adults are aged over 40, some fought to change things years ago and plenty of older people are poor. Few go to the gay village now and this majority deserve to celebrate their Pride too.

So be sceptical and watch out for things that aren't actually what they claim to be.

Your site has ads, so aren't you profiting?

In the year to 31 August 2009 g7uk.com brought in a total of £37.96 in ad income. Webhosting (with the excellent Certified Hosting) costs $143 US Dollars per year which is about £88 (Sep 2009 exchange rate). That isn't the whole story because the server is shared with one other main site and a couple of very small ones. But g7uk.com is a big site with hundreds of pages, videos and thousands of images, so the ad income just about covers the cost of hosting it or maybe not quite.

How did you first become interested?

I was always against the 'pledgeband'. In 1999 I was entitled to a concessionary band and went along to an office at the town hall to ask about one. There was a lot of 'tut tutting' about how me not paying full price would mean less money for good causes and I seem to remember there were a few familiar faces among the people sitting there.

After Mardi Gras 1999 it emerged that, because of wastefulness and inept organisation, zero had been raised for charity.

Like most people I was furious and went to the public meetings and after that I began to take an interest. From 2003 onwards, the ticket and fences were reintroduced and there seemed to be less transparency and openness.

When I began asking questions I found that often I couldn't get a response at all. One letter was sent through my MP and even he struggled to get a reply. There seemed to be a general attitude that I had no right to ask. That made me more curious.

This air of unaccountability in Manchester's gay village continues. A recent example was the Cruz101 birthday draw. Three times I wrote to Cruz101 to ask if it was true a relative of the owner had won the first prize of a car. I received no response. I sent a stamped addressed envelope to Cruz101 for a list of the winners and never received one.

However I believe that some of the people who are behind Manchester Pride itself now are in favour of more transparency in the future and the LGF has offered to answer questions.

Is the information on your website accurate?

I hope and believe it is. When people won't answer questions and decide to withhold basic information from the public, that makes it difficult to check some facts and I don't have a powerful broadcaster or newspaper behind me to help open doors.

Then there are things such as the deliberately over-inflated Pride crowd figures that have been put into the public domain by the organisers via press releases since the 1990's. So it can be a very muddy picture and no doubt that suits some people.

Sometimes I have to look at all the available evidence and make an educated guess.

A couple of times I have been fed stories that I discovered weren't true after a bit of basic fact-checking. Whether that was deliberate I don't know. So I am careful.

I'm always willing to discuss things and consider changes and corrections. But, if my memory is correct, in all the time this website has been online I don't think I've had a single email or letter from Operation Fundraiser, Manchester Pride or the LGF asking me to change anything.