Manchester Pride is one of the largest Pride events in the UK. Based in the area known as ‘The Village’ around Canal Street, it takes place over a weekend in August and includes a huge parade through the centre of Manchester. It is one of the highlights of the year for the whole of Manchester. FGH Security has provided event security for Manchester Pride since 2012. It has been one of our favourite events to work for just as long.
Manchester Pride was the second major weekend event to grace our Event Security calendar. The first challenge was delivering a city-centre event, rather than a greenfield site. The second was getting to know the LGBTQ+ community. In those days we were still quite new to Manchester. To get to know the city, and the village, in particular, we organized a treasure hunt for our whole team around the area. To get to know the people we also then visited some of the venues in the area as customers.
We also partnered with the event organizers and Lancashire Constabulary to train our team on how to best serve the LGBTQ+ community in an event security role.
The parade through the city centre has always provided a great experience in combining our event security approach into a combined multi-agency effort. A lot of people and businesses need us to get the parade right.
This event has also made itself famous among our team for the uniforms. We worked with event management to design an appearance for our team that resonated with the event. This resulted in the pinkest security uniforms ever seen. The steward tops, in particular, were dazzling.
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