60,000 expected for Belfast Pride

This year's Pride festival is set to be the 'biggest and best ever,' according to the Rainbow Project.

Organisers say the celebrations will hopefully attract over 50,000 visitors to Belfast.

Around 100 people took part in the city's first Pride parade almost thirty years ago and there were more protesters than participants, according to the organisation.

The event celebrates Belfast's LGBT community and Gavin Boyd from the Rainbow Project told Downtown Cool FM what to expect:

"If you're coming down to Pride make sure you bring plenty of water, sun cream and a hat, you never know what the weather's going to be like.

"Wear bright colours and sing and dance through the streets it's the most joyful protest you'll ever see."

The Pride Festival itself runs over 100 events across 10 days, 26th July to 4th August with the parade the main event on Saturday 3rd August.

The Rainbow Project's website describes Pride as; "the biggest cross community parade in Belfast and the single biggest parade in the city, the main event in the LGBT+ calendar and the one of the key events in Belfast Pride festival.

"It is a protest and a celebration, a call for equality, a stand for solidarity and a celebration of the lives of LGBT+ people in Belfast."

In 2018, around 55,000 visitors were attracted to the city to celebrate the Pride festival but Gavin wants to top that in 2019:

"The first Belfast Pride Parade was in 1991 with about 100 participants and significantly outnumbered by the demonstrators against them.

"Last year we cracked 55,000 so if we can get up to 60,000 this year and really show that Belfast Pride is one of the most important events on this island I think that's a really important thing to say."

Gavin also said although attitudes are changing, more still needs to be done:

"There's still a long journey to go before we reach true equality but the fact that marriage equality comes in later this year gives us an extra reason to celebrate.

"At the first Pride parade almost 30 years ago we barely had any of the protections that we have today.

"It was still legal to fire someone from their job for being gay, still legal to deny them the rent of a house for being gay whereas now, 28 years later, Northern Ireland has completely changed.

"Belfast has also completely changed, now people travel from all over the world to attend Belfast Pride because our city has such a reputation for putting on one of the most amazing parties for LGBT people in Europe."