LCR Pride cancels 2025 Liverpool Pride events

Organisers of Pride in Liverpool and March with Pride announce ‘with great sadness’ the cancellation of this year’s events amid ‘financial and organisational challenges’. Tony McDonough reports

LCR Pride Foundation has cancelled the 2025 Pride in Liverpool event and Liverpool March with Pride citing “financial and organisational challenges”.

Pride in Liverpool and March with Pride were due to take place on Saturday, July 26. LGBTQ+ individuals and allies were invited to “stand against rising hate, discrimination and prejudice”.

More than 20,000 people were expected to take part in this year’s event. In April LCR Pride Foundation said the march will cost more than £10,000 to deliver. It added industry supplier costs will rise by 20% to 30%.

Pride is one Liverpool’s biggest annual visitor economy events with tens of thousands of people offering a spending boost to bars, restaurants and hotels.

In a statement on Thursday, LCR Pride Foundation’s board of directors said: “It is with great sadness that we announce the cancellation of this year’s Pride in Liverpool and March with Pride.

“In recent months the charity has faced significant financial and organisational challenges, which have impacted timescales and resulted in it reverting to an almost entirely volunteer-led operation.

“This, combined with rising costs and difficulty securing national and local funding, has made it impossible to bring Pride in Liverpool to the city this year.

“Having listened to our community, we also recently took the decision to sever our relationship with Barclays, which created further delays to planning.

“While we are confident that this was the right decision, it is one that has had a substantial impact at an already challenging time.

“Our small team had been working closely with key partners and some fantastic city-based sponsors right up until the end of May to try to ensure the march went ahead, but despite all best efforts we were unable to make it feasible.”

The board added it was “devastated” not to be able to march at a time when “solidarity, protest and celebration is needed more than ever”.

“However, we strongly believe that it is the right decision to ensure both the continuation of the organisation and to enable the return of Pride in Liverpool and our march in 2026,” it said. “On that front, discussions with Liverpool City Council and a number of city-based sponsors are already under way.

“We believe that our beautiful, resilient city region deserves a consistent, safe and community-led pride celebration each and every year, and our priority now is to ensure that we have a sustainable foundation to secure that.”

Cllr Harry Doyle, Liverpool City Council’s Cabinet member for Health, Wellbeing and Culture, also: “It’s hugely disappointing that LCR Pride Foundation are having to cancel Pride in Liverpool and March with Pride, especially given the success of last year’s event and how important it has become for our LGBTQ+ community.

“It’s absence this year will be keenly felt, particularly given the ever-growing need to support our community and promote unity.

Any march registration fees paid for 2025 will be refunded and invoices will not be raised for those organisations who had registered to march.

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