Seaford's first ever Pride festival to go ahead this weekend
Councillors have granted it a license after a late challenge
The first ever Seahaven Pride Festival is set to go ahead this weekend, after a last minute licensing hearing.
On Friday (August 27), a Lewes District Council licensing panel granted a premises licence, allowing the inaugural Seahaven Pride Festival to take place on part of the Martello Fields in Seaford this coming Sunday (August 29).
The event is described as a not-for-profit and family-friendly LGBT+ festival and is set to include performances from tribute acts, musicians, drag artists and dancers, alongside food concessions and bars selling soft drinks and alcohol.
Both the live performances and the sale of alcohol required licensing approval.
Speaking at the hearing, Amanda Hoy of event organiser T21 Productions, said: “We believe this is a fantastic event for Seaford and the Seahaven area, to raise visibility on the LGBT community and provide better inclusion and diversity.
“We have put an event management plan together and we believe we can deliver a really safe event. If we weren’t able to do that, we wouldn’t be here now.”
Ms Hoy and her fellow event organisers went on to provide more details of how the festival was to be run, including timings, security arrangements and transport plans.
She said the event had sold around 1,000 tickets already, with around 80 per cent of these having been bought by Seaford residents.
With tickets sold on the day, Ms Hoy added, the event is expected to attract somewhere in the region of 1,500 people. A maximum of 1,800 people would be allowed on site at any one time.
It was also confirmed that the event is to open its doors to most attendees at 11am (although guests with autism spectrum conditions are able to come an hour earlier), with no new attendees to be allowed in after 7.30pm. Music would stop at 9pm, with the site to be cleared shortly afterwards.
Councillors also heard representations from a number of local residents with concerns about the festival. These included neighbours to the site, who asked for the event to have shorter hours to reduce the length of the low level noise disturbance expected.
Concerns were also raised around the sale of alcohol, with fears around disturbance both on the site and spilling out to the rest of the town. With this in mind, queries raised over the alcohol hours could be reduced and extra event management put in place.
Issue was taken with other aspects of the festival as well, however.
Seaford resident Sheila White, who said: “I am concerned about the protection of children at this event, because I would like to argue it is not a family-friendly event. Okay, you’re having a fairground on the field and a bouncy castle, but it doesn’t seem to me that the line up of performances is at all family friendly.
“I don’t know if the members have seen the line up. I have got a few pictures I took from the website which maybe you would just like to look at and see if you think these are suitable for children. I do not think these sorts of things would be suitable for young children and I would not want my young grandchildren to be exposed to them.
“I am really questioning whether this is a family-friendly event and I am concerned about protecting children from harm … not physical harm necessarily but psychological harm, emotional harm.”
These views were strongly challenged by event’s organisers.
Speaking earlier in the meeting, Ms Hoy said: “We have tailored all entertainment to make sure it is family-appropriate. We have a four-year-old daughter … who will be at the event.
“We would not under any circumstances allow our daughter to be in front of anything that is unsuitable or allow any other children to be in front of anything unsuitable.
“We are extremely protective of our children and our friends’ and family’s children, and the children of the community.”
No licensing concerns had been raised by any responsible authorities
After hearing from all those involved, the panel agreed to grant the licence largely as requested, although with a shorter period for alcohol sales.
The panel also imposed conditions – which had been agreed with the organisers – limiting the licence to one day per year and requiring Sussex Police and Lewes District Council are given notice and details of how the event is to be run.
These conditions would apply for future years the event is held as well.
This licence would allow live and recorded music from 9am to 9pm and the sale of alcohol 11am to 8.30pm.