New Family Zone comes to Manchester Pride Festival this Saturday.
IN a first for Manchester Pride Festival, organisers are introducing a new Family Zone on Saturday, August 24 from 12pm to 5pm in Sackville Gardens.
The event, which will be at the heart of the festival in the Gay Village Party, will welcome families and children under 14 coinciding with the Manchester Pride Parade Screening in the park.
The event programme is centered around fun, wellness and learning and will comprise of family-friendly activities, a picnic area, craft workshops, sport sessions and talks as well as a place for LGBT+ families to get together.
Hosted in a big top style circus tent will be Junk Orchestra and Queen Vs Bowie Disco with Born To Be Wild Child. The Junk Orchestra features a supersonic recycled collection of objects, rescued and re-invented from the urban sprawl! Within each individual jam session, participants will get to play and compose on tuned junk instruments; covering percussion, wind and string – flipflopaphones, scaffoldaphones, tuned tanks and wheels, logaphones, fire extinguisherphone, tincan drums, storm sheets and more!
The picnic area will welcome the popular Drag Queen Story Time and Proud To Be Parents: One stop shop. Proud To Be Parents will be offering advice for any LGBT+ person/people that would like to start a family, offering information and advice on each of the various avenues.
Plus there will be pride flag making, spaceship design, giant games, face painting, no mess crafts and a soft play area.
Mark Fletcher, chief executive for Manchester Pride, said: “When designing Manchester Pride Festival every year, we take a lot of time to consult with LGBT+ people and the people who come to the festival have told us that they would welcome a space in which they can celebrate with the whole family. So for the first time in 2019 we have created this space. Through art, craft, music and story telling we will create a unique space within th Gay Village Party for people of all ages to enjoy.”
Family tickets are priced from £20 – day tickets are priced from £10.
For weekend tickets click here:
The four-day Gay Village Party, will this year bring live performances, a food and makers market and more to the iconic cobbled streets and area surrounding them in Manchester’s Gay Village.
The focal point of the event will be Sackville Gardens which will play host to the Thomas Cook Airlines stage and the brand new family space.
Music and performances will be programmed throughout the weekend with Liberty X opening the event alongside Sara Aalto and host Stephen Bailey. Proms in the Park will take over on Saturday daytime followed by a Danny Beard and friends extravaganza in the evening.
A huge part of the weekend will be the Queer Music Stage which will be programmed by Manchester Pride’s year-round programme of culture Superbia. It will run on Sunday from 2pm to 11pm.
Trans Pride will also take place on the Sackville Gardens Stage on Monday and as always the weekend will close with the Candlelit Vigil in this space in the evening.
The EXPO, in partnership with Cooperative Bank will continue in the space on Bloom Street where it has been for many years, along with the hugely popular Silent Disco on Saturday and Sunday and Singalong Cinema on Monday. The films shown will be selected by a poll via Manchester Pride’s Facebook page.
The car park, which in the past has played host to the main stage, will this year host the Sackville Square Fair with a host of food and drink traders and a makers market with DJs and live music playing all weekend. Plus the much-missed fairground rides will return to the site to make the most of the space which has become much reduced as a result of the construction work happening across the area.
Ticket prices for this event are subsidised by Manchester Pride to help deliver a safe, community pride celebration.
Guests can expect wristband checks in bars and the same security as previous festivals to ensure a safe and welcoming space for LGBT+ people to celebrate all weekend long.
Running from Friday, August 23 to Monday, August 26, Manchester Pride Festival 2019 will be made up of Manchester Pride Live, the Candlelit Vigil, the Superbia Weekend, the Gay Village Party, Manchester Pride Parade and Youth Pride MCR.
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