Northern Pride today celebrates its recognition for Pride in the City 2024 in the annual North East England Tourism Awards in partnership with VisitEngland, which saw the festival shortlisted in the new Tourism Festival or Event category which was introduced for 2025.
Bishop Auckland based festival Kynren took home the glassware as winners, with members of the public voting in their thousands in this first of its kind award for the region. Other finalists included Northumberland County Show and Durham Fire and Ice.
Pride in the City 2024 was recognised for its success and fantastic contribution to the local visitor economy in the prestigious awards ceremony which took place on Thursday 20 March at Newcastle Civic Centre, bringing together the very best within the North East tourism industry for a night of glitz and glam.
For the first time in its history, Destination North East, the team behind the awards, gave the region the opportunity to decide the winners in three new local categories, including the Tourism Festival or Event category. The new categories were designed to shine a light on the tourism industry’s amazing volunteers, up-and-coming new talent, and the unforgettable events and festivals that delighted audiences over the past 12 months.
Traditionally Northern Pride Festival was held on the outskirts of the city, however, in February 2024, Pride in the City was announced, moving the annual celebration into a number of locations across Newcastle's city centre. This included 21 city centre venues, places and spaces getting involved, 12 satellite events taking place and four stages with incredible talent across the weekend. Thanks to this new approach, Pride in the City 2024 saw almost 17,000 people from the local community join the annual Pride march, with 82,000 people in attendance across the entire festival. This resulted in an impressive £4million boost to the local economy from visitors heading into the city.
Ste Dunn, Director of Northern Pride said: “We are over the moon to have been recognised in the North East England Tourism Awards for Pride in the City 2024. It was an ambitious change for the Festival, moving from the Town Moor into the heart of the city, but it was absolutely worth it.
“This nomination was a testament to the hard work of our volunteers and the work we've done with businesses in the city to ensure a warm and safe welcome for all attendees across the festival. Not only that, but this highlights the importance of queer culture being recognised in the event and tourism space and we hope this long continues as we celebrate being unapologetically visible.
“This week we’ve seen the vulnerability of events like ours in Europe with Hungary banning pride marches after 30 years. As a global community our rights are being challenged on a daily basis and our fight against queer culture erasure needs to be stronger than ever. So we can not take this acknowledgment of our Pride in the City success for granted, but use this to move forward and build a strong cohesive community and provide safe spaces for LGBTQIA+ people here in the region and for those that visit all year round.
“We’d like to thank all those that voted for our festival, and for the ongoing support from the LGBTQIA+ community, our allies and the region’s tourism sector for their continued efforts to work with Northern Pride in creating a safe and welcoming North East.”
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