Most easterly Pride in UK 'will celebrate everyone'

Lowestoft Pride will provide festival-goers like this one, pictured here at a different event, with eight hours of exciting and educational entertainment

An inclusive festival which aims to promote equality, love, and diversity with "true heart" will bring the people of a Suffolk town together this weekend.

Lowestoft Pride, dubbed “the most easterly Pride” in the UK, will take over Sparrows Nest Gardens on Saturday, running from 11:00-19:00 BST.

The event, which celebrates the LGBTQ+ community, will include live performances, engaging and educational activities, and more than 20 stalls.

Michael Winter, who helps promote the event, believes this year’s festival can grow on the success of the town’s inaugural celebration in 2023.

“It’s going to be welcoming to all, we will have entertainment throughout the day, and it is just going to be a really good and fun event for everyone to enjoy," he said.

“It’s really important we get more awareness of celebrating everyone within our communities, and bringing Pride into our local communities helps promote inclusion.

“We have made progress and the very fact we are able to put on these types of events is progress, but there’s always ways we can be more accepting and understanding.”

Drag artist MSK - also known as Kenny Moore - will be performing at Marylin's in Lowestoft's town centre in celebration of this year's Pride

Drag artist MSK – also known as Kenny Moore – will be performing at a post-Pride afterparty at Marylin’s, which will have live acts from 17:45-03:00 BST.

He said: “I’ve performed at numerous Pride events in front of thousands of people, but the smaller, community-based Prides are still just the best as they have a true heart.

“I come from the generation of Clause 28 which was a series of laws across Britain that prohibited the promotion of homosexuality by local authorities.

“So, to see the new generation be so open and positive towards diversity is just amazing - never forgetting the battle we’ve fought and the one we still are fighting.

“To look out at an audience and see such love gives me such hope that we are moving forward to a better place.”