Thursday 12 March 2009
Brighton Made Sure National Student Pride Was The Party To End All Parties
National Student Pride in association with the NUS LGBT campaign took place last Sunday (8th March) in Brighton. The event was part of Brighton Winter Pride and run by students for students.
Over 1,000 students from 20 universities across the UK converged on Brighton for a weekend that included debate, dancing and drinking.
Revenge Nightclub hosted the pre-pride party on Saturday night and the absence of sleep from some of the attendees did not stop them being there in force for the main event at Oceana on the Sunday.
After the official opening by the Mayor of Brighton and Hove, there were a whole host of events that took place during the day.
The centrepiece was a Question Time style debate chaired by Wes Streeting, President of National Union of Students (NUS) featuring panellists from the world of politics, media, music and religion.
They were: Chris Bryant MP, Deputy Leader of the House of Commons, Aled Haydn Jones, Producer from the Chris Moyles Show and Presenter of The Radio 1 Surgery, Dan Gillespie Sells, Lead singer of The Feeling, The Rev. Debbie Gaston from the Brighton Metropolitan Community Church, Jane Czyzselska, Editor of lesbian magazine DIVA, Chris Gibbons, Senior Education Officer for Stonewall, Persia West, Leading Trans activist from A Place at the Table, and Nigel Tart, Green Party, Schools Out and LGBT History Month.
Topics discussed included gay marriage, trans issues, LGBT activism and BBC homophobia.
In addition to the Question Time event there were also market and trade stalls, workshops, book readings and a whole afternoon of live music by new and emerging acts.
The evening event saw students return to Revenge Nightclub for free pizza and live music from local bands including Doll and The Kicks who are about to start their UK tour with Morrissey.
From there they defied the pouring rain to embark upon a bar crawl around Brighton"s gay bars before everybody ended up Brighton"s premier seafront club Digital, for the climax of the day which was compered by London socialite Jodie Harsh with Dan Gillespie Sells.
It featured a headline performance by Frankmusik, stilt walking zebra clad performers, go-go boys and some fantastic DJ sets from Juice 107.2 FM"s Jonesy and Gaydar Radio"s Alex Baker.
by: Tom Guy
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