It was the 14th June 2016 and Southampton Guildhall Square held a vigil for the tragic loss of life from the Pulse shooting in Orlando. Hundreds of people turned up to pay their respects on thie sombre occasion. Following the vigil, two women met and had a conversation about the fantastic turn out and discussed why there hadn’t been a Southampton Pride for over 20 years.


A couple of days later they put a call out on Facebook for people to help and discuss the possibility of putting on a Pride event in the city. About 100 people turned up and out of those 6 people formed the Southampton Pride committee.


They decided to get going straight away and 9 weeks later Southampton put on the first Southampton Pride. The weather was windy and wet but all the hard work paid off and over 5,000 people came to celebrate equality, diversity and inclusion.


We are now in our 5th year and last year saw approximately 17,500+ from all over the South come out to make the best Pride we’ve ever had.


Julianne, Danny, James, Matt, Mikey and Jay work hard all year round as volunteers with full time jobs, working to make every year better than the last. It’s not always easy but seeing a sea of rainbow colours and smiling faces makes it all worth-while. We couldn’t do it without the support of local business and organisations, fabulous volunteers and the support of the city. Thank you from all of us.


For more information on the team behind Southampton Pride, check out our bios below.