Manchester Pride 2008
Dancers on the Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service float at Manchester Pride 2008.
1234567Manchester Pride is the city's annual festival celebrating lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender life and is attended by more than 250,000 people. Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service takes part in the event each year to promote fire safety messages to the local community. This year the event took place on Saturday 23rd August.
What is Manchester Pride?
Manchester Pride is an action-packed 78 hour festival full of music, film, arts events and theatre organised in aid of charities and community groups across Greater Manchester. The Big Weekend ran from Friday 22nd to Monday 25th August but the undoubted highlight was the Pride parade which through the heart of the city centre on Saturday 23rd August.
Each year Greater Manchester Fire and Rescue Service takes part in the parade. This year our theme was having an escape plan incase of a house fire. The message of 'Get Out - Be Prepared Make an Escape Plan' was communicated through a colourful float and four dancers dressed in nightwear on a float designed to look like a house on fire. They danced around the float to the sounds of I Will Survive, Burning Down the House and We Got to Get Out of This Place.
The parade started in Castlefield and went through the streets of the city centre. The streets were full of thousands upon thousands of spectators, young and old, gay and straight, friends and family.
The parade enables us to put across important fire safety messages to the public in a fantastically fun way and it also helps to demonstrate our commitment to equal opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender staff and members of the public.
Find out more about Manchester Pride 2008 by visiting www.manchesterpride.com.
What did you think about our float at Manchester Pride?
Do you see our float? Do you receive a bluetooth fire safety message from us? Let us know what you thought about our presence at Manchester Pride 2008 by filling in our contact form. Please select Other from the drop down list and fill in your comments.
Manchester Pride 2007
On August 25th 2007, 60 Fire Service volunteers including three operational crews, a float and two fire engines participated in Manchester Pride. We chose a 60s theme - 'smoking - definitely not groovy' to get across a fire safety message about the dangers of cigarettes. A decorated float featured dancers who entertained to a specially commissioned music mix of 'Help' by The Beatles and 'Fire Brigade' by The Move.