Rainbow colours flew proud as Halton Pride made borough history with the area’s first ever festival of its type.
Live music, drag queen bingo, karaoke, children’s entertainment and a candle-lit vigil marked the march of progress in the ancient grounds of Halton Castle and pub in Runcorn with views across the region on Sunday. Lead organiser Hayley Smith said the borough’s debut LGBTQ+ festival was arranged at short notice over a span of weeks with “amazing” support for the family-friendly event from Andi Herring, of Liverpool City Region Pride, and Halton Borough Council.
Hayley said visitors enjoyed a “nice” atmosphere and the array of entertainment on offer at the ticketed debut and “everyone had fun”. Guests included Halton mayor and mayoress Mark Dennett and Andrea Dennett, who showed their backing online and were “really supportive”.
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Hayley told the ECHO that lots of visitors were keen to thank the organisers and shared insights into what it meant to them.
Attention is already turning to next year’s follow-up Halton Pride, with a two-day event to take place at a venue expected to be announced in coming days, and to be brought forward to July to coincide with other Pride celebrations around the country.
Hayley said: “Everyone was coming up to us and saying ‘you’ve done really well’ and the mayor was saying ‘you’ve done really well’.
“Everyone was really enjoying it and coming up and thanking me.
“It was the first one ever, it was fab.
“We had loads of people there and obviously next year is going to be bigger, and we’re hopefully going to get it as a free event.”
She added: “We’ve done amazing to get this off the ground in such a short time relatively, next year will be bigger and better and we’ll help as much as we can, and have decorations and more people.
“This year has been fab.”
Describing the atmosphere, Hayley said: “The atmosphere was just full of happiness, people feeling proud of who they are.
“It was absolutely lovely, and that’s what we wanted to achieve.”
Mr Dennett, Halton mayor, tweeted: “We had a great time last night over at The Castle Pub, Runcorn for Haltons first #Pride event!
“The event was held to mark the celebration of 50 years of Pride. The sun was shining, everyone looked to be having the best time, we chatted to so many people it was so lovely to attend.”
Halton spans the towns of Runcorn and Widnes, and some neighbouring villages.
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