::G7uk.com: Manchester Pride balloon launch invaded by queer protesters (VIDEO)

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Manchester Pride 2008 balloon launch invaded by queer demonstrators

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

Queer protesters gatecrashed the opening event of Manchester Pride 2008 in Albert Square. Pride had organised a balloon release by a group of 18 year olds, in recognition of it being 18 years since the first August Bank Holiday event.

However, as officials, the city's tourist chief and Manchester's Lord Mayor looked on, protesters surrounded the balloons, unfurled banners and waved placards in protest at the commercialisation of the city's Pride, high ticket prices, low charity amounts and Pride's lack of inclusion.

At the last minute, one of the 18 year olds who had come to be in the official launch was told that she couldn't take part because of her hooded top, which she didn't want to remove for personal reasons. Rather than embrace this as an opportunity to show a 'hooded' teenager involved in something positive, the Pride organisers excluded her because it would spoil their corporate-style publicity photographs.

The following Monday, one of the protesters was interviewed on BBC Radio Manchester's weekly LGBT Citizen Manchester show.

This video includes two minutes of exclusive archive footage of August Bank Holiday 1991, which you won't see at any official Pride event. Some of it is previously unpublished. Plus some black and white photos from Canal Street, August 1990.