Manchester Pride Is The Property Industry's Cup Of Tea

We’ve come a long way. The first Manchester Pride weekends 30 years ago were a mix of village fete and gay disco. Hi-NRG music drifted over trestle tables of Victoria sponge cakes home-baked by leather queens. Quaint is scarcely the word.

This weekend’s Pride festival is ticketed, sponsored, and attracts several hundred thousand visitors. It is one of the largest LGBT festivals in Europe.

The property industry has come a long way, too. Active indifference or hostility to LGBT issues has been replaced by what looks like a genuine eagerness to make up for lost time.

JLL is joining the Manchester parade for the first time. A massive turnout from the firm is expected after a similar first outing at Bristol pride last month.

Meanwhile, U+I plays host to a large slice of the weekend’s festivities, as its Mayfield Depot welcomes a crowd of more than 10,000 to see headline acts including Ariana Grande, the singer who has become a (gay) Manchester icon after the 2017 terrorist bombing of her Manchester Arena concert. Grande probably doesn't realise it, but her August bank holiday weekends are now committed to Manchester until the end of time, so that everyone gets a chance to #bemoremartyn.

The city’s LGBT architects are on the march, too: They assemble on Saturday at 9.30am. Will they all come dressed as 40-storey BTR towers? They have their own show-stopping float designed by RAW Architecture Workshop.

Meanwhile OneManchester, the public sector housing and regeneration business, has teamed up with contractor and residential developer Casey Group to provide what will certainly be the largest float on the parade: a 30 tonne dump truck. Participants will dance around on top.

“The tip function will be disengaged!” Casey Group Business Development Director Matthew Sorrigan insisted.