We first attended Portsmouth Pride in 2015 and while we’ve not been able to make it to every colourful day of celebration and awareness that’s been held in the city since, we have attended quite a few. At the time of publishing this small selection of photos from the 2015 Pride event in Portsmouth we’re a couple of weekends away from Portsmouth Pride 2025 which will also be the host event for UK Pride this year, and we’re intending to join along with the march and some of the day’s festivities once again.
Back in 2015 the Pride event in Portsmouth started in Guildhall Square, marched up and into Commercial Road, did a bit of a loop then came back to the square. Other activities took place afterwards but that was the limit of our attendance on that day. In more recent years the march has expanded quite significantly and has taken place along Southsea seafront instead which makes for a far more enjoyable day out, starting at the pier then taking in a shoreline and tree-lined route with views of the sea, the castle, and the funfair to accompany the walk to the common for the afternoon and evening’s entertainment.
You can usually count on local politicians to attend Pride events and in 2015 we had representatives from all the major and minor parties, including MPs and council leaders from the Tory and Labour halves of the city’s political split. Prominent activist Peter Tatchell was also in attendance. The Tories stopped coming after a while – for obvious reasons (they’re terrible people, in case it’s not obvious) – and it remains to be seen if we’ll get our regular visit from Labour this year given their recent complete balls-up of social policies in futile bids to appeal to the nastier elements of society and the media that feeds them.
The following photos from the 2015 Portsmouth Pride event represent a very small number of those taken on the day and if you’re interested in seeing more then you can check out my Flickr album here: Portsmouth Pride 2015.
