Let’s start at the very begining, it’s a very good place to start!

Cheltenham Pride Festivals are a not-for-profit collective of former Pride organisers based in and around Cheltenham.

As a group, the founding trustees have over 50 years combined experience as Pride organisers with major Prides across the UK (including here in Gloucestershire).

We’ll be launching our “Meet the Team” page soon so you can find out all about each one of us.

Cheltenham is a town with an international reputation for festivals but has never had its own dedicated Pride festival. Having been approached by a number of artists, venues, other Cheltenham Festivals and members of the community, it's abundantly clear that the town has been missing out. Never ones to shy away from a challenge, the collective are endeavouring to change that.

We’re not just about events, we want to celebrate and bring together the vibrant and wonderful LGBT+ community of Cheltenham. We wholeheartedly want ideas from the community on how we can go about this!

Just drop us a line or pop along to an event for a chat.

Currently we are working with a number of venues to set up a trial and taster events across the town in the coming months. This will help us explore, with the LGBT community, their needs and wants for future events.

We know you want us to deliver right now, but the process of getting these things setup can take a bit of time, there are checks and things we have to do first.

Find us on the usual social media for more details, the links are down there at the bottom of the page.

The short answer is, absolutely, yes.
A number of people have noticed that our events are unsurprisingly not in the “traditional” LGBT spaces in Cheltenham, after all Cheltenham hasn’t had its own dedicated LGBT space for many years.

We work with all our partner venues to ensure the staff, including security, are fully aware of potential issues our community may face. Our team, and the venues own team, are on hand throughout every event to ensure your safety. But if you have any specific concerns, please do get in touch and we’ll be more than happy to talk.

We operate a zero tolerance to homophobia, transphobia, ageism, sexism and racism policy. In short, we ask people to leave bad attitudes, egos and phobias at the door as they are not welcome here, we’re about bringing people together, it really is that simple!!!

Fortunately we have been approached by several venues in Cheltenham who are looking to provide events for the community.

There is an amazing variation in these venues and we are happy to work with them on the basis that they have to meet some simple criteria for event safety (in every way), staff training, business ethics and a sincere desire to provide for the community rather than just profit from it.

If you own a venue and want to help us build our community, get in touch and we’ll have a chat. There’s a form link down there at the bottom of the page!

First off, thank you, we love people who want to help!

We’re really happy for everyone from the community and our allies to get involved. You see that button up there in the menu, the one that says “volunteer”, give it a click, fill out the details and we’ll get back to you as quickly as we can.

We applaud the work that Pride in Gloucestershire is doing on the big issues across the county, UK and Europe. They are currently investing considerable funds from sponsors, Gloucestershire County Council, Gloucester City Council and even from Cheltenham’s mayor on events primarily in Gloucester (with smaller events across the county) and also an exciting plan to try and bring the major festival of EuroPride to Gloucestershire in 2026.

We sincerely wish them every success with this, however we are a different organisation, with different goals and wanting to deliver something quite exciting here in Cheltenham.

Primarily, we are focussed on our community, it socail inclusion and ways we can help develop the LGBT space in it.

Let’s be clear, It's not a competition, it's just a different focus with our team concentrating on the wonderful and diverse community in Cheltenham, (that’s not to say we won’t support/represent our local community on national issues either, thats important, but its our town where we can make a real difference).

The Charity Commission are currently considering our application to become a fully fledged registered charity, watch this space, and until that time we operate as a not for profit community organisation/un-registered charity.

Wow, again, thank you!

Put simply, pop along to our events. Speak to a member of the team and we’ll talk you through our plans and ways you can help.

If you are a venue looking to work with us, a sponsor looking to become involved or an individual looking to help us cover our costs then you can drop us a line using the contact form at the bottom of the page.