Barclays is once again to be the headline sponsor of this year’s Pride in London festival championing the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT+) community. Pride in London a week-long festival, from June 21 to 28, celebrating all aspects of the LGBT community last year attracted more than 7
PRIDE in London a week-long festival, from June 21 to 28, celebrating all aspects of the LGBT community last year attracted more than 750,000 people to London with 30,000 joining in the annual Parade.
Pride is one of the capitols biggest one-day events, second only to the London Marathon.
This year’s Parade takes place on Saturday, June 27, alongside the festival in Trafalgar Square and activities in Soho.
The theme of this year’s event is Heroes, celebrating individuals who have contributed to LGBT+ rights over the years. Participants are being asked to nominate their own heroes, from the famous to the unsung, and to share their suggestions via the Twitter hashtag #PrideHeroes.
Heroes follows the success of last year’s award winning #FreedomTo campaign which ran across social, digital, OOH and PR channels, driving record-breaking attendance to the event and helping to change attitudes towards LGBT+ people.
Barclays has been a close partner of Pride in London since its inception two years ago and was headline sponsor for the first time in 2014. During the festival it will be offering participants the opportunity to Ping for Pride – using its Pingit payment app which allows anyone with a bank account to donate to Pride in London from their phone or to donate via Twitter.
Event-goers will also be able to use Pingit to pay for items such as drinks and food more easily, safely, simply and quickly than with cash. They will not need to be Barclays customers to use the Pingit app.
Val Soranno Keating, Barclays’ Global LGBT+ lead and CEO of Barclaycard, said: “Pride in London is a highlight of the LGBT+ calendar in the UK and a key element in our own programme of activities in support of diversity and inclusion in the workplace, and we are delighted to be supporting as headline sponsor for the second year running.
“Our on-going relationship with Pride, both in London and across the UK, is just one of the ways in which we show our commitment to the LGBT+ community. At Barclays we want our colleagues, customers and clients to feel free to express who they are at all times. We’ve made great strides internally in creating an inclusive global workplace, but we want to go further. By supporting Pride in London, we’re saying “this is who we are” and we want to encourage everyone else to be able to say who they are, without fear.”
Michael Salter, Chair for Pride in London, added: “Pride in London has become one of the city’s largest annual events, and last year’s festivities were enjoyed by more people than ever before – so it’s fantastic that Barclays are again supporting the event as our headline sponsor.
“With our new #PrideHeroes campaign we’re encouraging people to celebrate and acknowledge the personal and historic heroes within our community, whether friends and family, factual or fictional, historic or living, political or celebrity. People will be able to publicly acknowledge their heroes and celebrate the positive impact they have had on their lives and the broader LGBT+ community.”
