Bi Pride UK announces details for ‘largest bi+ event in the world’
Bi Pride UK announces this year’s details for the ‘largest bi+ event in the world’ (Getty Images)
Bi Pride UK has announced details of this year’s celebrations, promising that it will be the “largest bi+ event in the world”.
Last year’s event broke records by attracting more than 1,300 people, and organiser’s have announced that the base for 2024 will be the University of West London’s Ealing campus, on Saturday 31 August – the day before the start of Bi+ Visibility Month, which aims to shine a light on the specific issues facing the bisexual community.
The event will comprise a main stage – comedian Sophie Duker headlined 2023’s event along with award-winning drag queen Lilly Snatchdragon – as well as discussion panels and stalls.
The organisers have not yet confirmed who will be performing this year but pointed out that the location “holds a special connection for the bi+ community” because it was where bi legend Freddie Mercury went to college.
Avi Kay, the chair of Bi Pride UK, told PinkNews: “Every year we’ve run Bi Pride, we’ve broken our record, and the record for the largest single day bi+ event in the world – in 2023 we had over 1,350 people, despite train strikes!
“We’re really excited for this year’s event, and for it to be our biggest yet, as well as our most inclusive and accessible.”
Event organisers added that as well as being a celebration, Bi Pride UK attempts to “combat the erasure and stigma that is so detrimental to this community”.
Last year, research revealed that nearly two-thirds of bisexual people have suffered anxiety and depression because of the negative stereotypes about their identity.
The study, run by LGBTQ+ dating app HER, found that 63 per cent of the 6,028 people surveyed said they have felt “excluded” by the wider LGBTQ+ community, while 71.5 per cent said they had “internalised” harmful stereotypes.
“The survey results were both surprising and not surprising to our team,” the founder and chief executive of social app HER, Robyn Exton, said. “The effects these decades-old stereotypes are having on present day individuals is crushing.”
