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Street Party!! Adam explores Pride outside the boundaries of Preston Park...

With Brighton Pride charging for entry to the park over the past few years - more unofficial parties have been happening all over the city. I was at a few and found them to be a different event than the party in the park, overall a more social experience. The social gathering at St Peters church was a nice relaxed area, I found that people around here were friendly and me and my boyfriend quickly found ourselves in a large group of new people. I feel this is what Pride is all about, being able to make new friends like this. Pride is just about people getting together and having a great time, St Peters church was great for this! We also visited the Old Steine, which was filled with plenty of amazing looking people all up for a good laugh. We had a great time dancing and hugging new exciting people we had only just met and it really just had a great open feel to it.

Poison Ivy was open as normal and had a very fun atmosphere about it and was just buzzing with energy. We had the pleasure of meeting a wonderfully stunning drag queen outside and had photos taken. While inside the whole place felt very energised, cheap drinks along with pole dancing really got the party going. The party energy from Poison Ivy continued to flow outside along St James street. Plenty of rainbow flags and amazing outfits filled the street along with the sounds of whistles, cheering and general chat. The entire energy of pride felt like it was focused on St James street and it was amazing to be there. This is really what I love about pride, the freedom it brings to the towns that host it. I was dancing with strangers in the street while dressed as a gay superhero. I really don't know many other events or places where this would be possible, but Brighton Pride just brings this amazing feeling of free expression with it.

Brighton Pride 2013 really turned out to be fantastic. I really think next year has a lot to live up to, but then again this has always been the case. The entire city comes to life during pride and its really like no other pride in the country. I have visited a few other pride events throughout England and they are very fun but always feel rather contained while Brighton pride really does just fill the whole city. I now have to deal with the post Pride downs whilst waiting for next years event! I hope you all enjoyed this years Pride as much as me.