Worthing Pride 2027

Worthing sits on the West Sussex coast west of Brighton and has around 111,000 residents. The town has its own Pride, and a fairly young one: Worthing Pride was first held only a few years ago and has since become a regular part of the summer. It is run by a local organising team under the name Worthing Pride, with Gary Richardson as Pride Director.

The event takes place in July. There is a parade along the seafront, which anyone can join for free, and a ticketed festival site with a stage. In the early years the parade started at the Burlington Hotel in West Worthing, passed the pier and ended in the Beach House grounds. The main event later moved to Steyne Gardens in the town centre. The move went through a drawn-out licensing process in which residents and Sussex Police raised concerns, and it was approved after the organisers agreed to shorter hours.

Worthing Pride now holds a permanent operating licence that covers the whole weekend, and a Sunday Garden Party has been added. Money has been tight at times, and the event came close to being cancelled before BA Euroflyer, a Gatwick-based subsidiary of British Airways, signed on as sponsor. Fundraising campaigns helped too. One parade ran under the theme Protecting Trans Lives.

Wikipedia puts attendance at one of the early editions at roughly 25,000 people, with all 5,000 festival tickets sold. Proceeds go to local causes; one year the beneficiary was LGBTQ Switchboard, a support service for LGBTQ people across Sussex. For a larger scene outside Pride weekend, most people head to Brighton, a short train ride along the coast.