The charity behind Manchester Pride has announced it has gone bust, leaving performers out of pocket.
The board of trustees said on Wednesday that the organisation had started the legal process of voluntary liquidation.
The announcement comes after the organisers of one of Europe’s biggest LGBTQ+ Pride events said last week they were “determining the best way forward” with legal and financial advisers.
Rumours of financial trouble had been swirling since artists and performers said they had not been paid since the event on the August bank holiday.
The trustees’ statement said a combination of rising costs, declining ticket sales and an unsuccessful bid to host Euro Pride had “led to the organisation no longer being financially viable”.
“We are sincerely sorry for those who will now lose out financially from the current situation,” the statement said. It also expressed regret for the delays in communication.
The trustees said the staff team would be made redundant and details of suppliers and artists still owed money had been handed to the liquidators.
One of the performers out of pocket is Zahirah Zapanta, who appeared in season six of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK. In an Instagram story, they said it was “deeply disappointing” that they and others hadn’t been paid while “repeated emails and requests regarding outstanding payments have been ignored”.
The LGBTQ+ community event, which regularly attracts about 100,000 visitors, has been running in some form since the 1980s.
It is not the first time the organisers have been criticised in recent years. There was a row in 2021 when the funding of two community charities was cut while the chief executive received a £20,000 pay rise.
The Charity Commission said it had opened a compliance case regarding Manchester Pride’s finances.
The leader of Manchester city council, Bev Craig, said it was disappointing that the event’s organisers had entered liquidation after the authority had done everything it could to “help keep the show on the road this year”.
Despite anxiety about the future of the event, she said Manchester Pride would enter a new chapter and take place next August.
“The council will play a full and active role in bringing together the LGBTQ community to help shape how the city moves forward to ensure a bright and thriving future for Manchester Pride,” she said.
The board of directors of Trans Pride Manchester, which held its first event in 2023, denounced the “lack of transparency and accountability” surrounding the liquidation of Manchester Pride.
“Manchester’s LGBTQIA+ community deserves better,” they said in a statement. “We deserve Pride that is accountable to the people who built it, not to sponsors, not to shareholders, but to us.
“Now is the time to come together for local groups, organisers, and individuals to work together on developing a sustainable, community centred future for pride movements in our city,” the statement continued.
“The end of Manchester Pride is by no means the end of Pride in Manchester. It’s our opportunity to reclaim it.”
