Pride London

Pride in London

Founded	1972
Headquarters	London, England, United Kingdom
Number of locations	Baker Street, Whitehall, Oxford Street, Regent Street, Piccadilly Circus, Lower Regent Street, Pall Mall and Trafalgar Square
Website	PrideInLondon.org

Pride London (Pride in London) is an annual LGBT pride festival and parade held each summer in the city of London, England. It is one of the longest running in the country and attracts an estimated one million visitors to the city. The festival's events and location within London vary every year however the Pride parade is the only annual event to close London's iconic Oxford Street. London's 2015 Gay Pride Parade through the streets of London attracted 1 million people making it the 7th largest gay event in the world and the largest Gay Pride Parade and Gay event ever held in the UK.

Pride has been organised by several organisations since the first official UK Gay Pride Rally which was held in London on 1 July 1972 (chosen as the nearest Saturday to the anniversary of the Stonewall riots of 1969) with approximately 2,000 participants. The first marches took place in November 1970 with 150 men walking through Highbury Fields in North London. The controversy of Section 28 from 1988 led to numbers increasing on the march in protest. In 1983 the march was renamed "Lesbian and Gay Pride" and in the 1990s became more of a carnival event. There were large park gatherings and a fair after the marches up until 2003.

'Pride London' was formed in 2004. Since 2004 a political rally in Trafalgar Square has been held straight after the parade, and more recently Pride London has organised several other events in the centre of London on Pride Day including in 2006 'Drag Idol' in Leicester Square, a women's stage in Soho and a party in Soho Square. In 1992 London was selected to hold the first Europride with attendance put at 100,000, London again held Europride in 2006 with an estimated 600,000 participants. In 2004 it was awarded registered charity status. The 2012 event was World Pride., though this was to be the last event organised by Pride London.

In late 2012, a group of individuals from within the LGBTQ community formed London LGBT+ Community Pride, a registered community interest company, and the company organised the Pride in London festival and parade in 2013. The organisation has been awarded a contract to organise Pride in London for five years by the Greater London Authority, together with funding of £500,000 over five years. The former Mayor of London, Boris Johnson has been a vocal supporter of Pride in London.