Falmouth Pride is one of the earliest Pride events in the UK and Cornwall Pride is one of three Pride’s to be honoured with The King’s Award for Voluntary Service (2025). This imbued 2026’s Falmouth Pride with much, well, Pride. Pride for their queer identities in conjunction with Pride for their Cornish/Kernow identities, as often overlooked and yet incredibly valuable parts of the UK.
This might be why Fal Pride experienced such a large and loud turnout on 25 April.
Falmouth Pride parade was welcomed in with sunshine and a community of supportive onlookers, who joined in with chants like “No borders, no nations, Trans liberations”, and “free, free Palestine”, as well as the popular call and response “what do we want? Trans rights. When do we want them? Now!”.
These chants were complemented by the Pendennis Brass group. The group performed the songs Dancing Queen, Is This the Way to Amarillo?, and YMCA on repeat, a soundtrack to the parade. Once the parade arrived at the event's square, and went through the rainbow entrance, everyone dispersed to look at the stalls or get a good spot up in front of the stage.
Pride’s events began with support from Falmouth’s deputy mayor, Councillor Tom Pearce. This was then followed with a shoutout to Trans Pride, which will be taking place on 23 May. Then, Falmouth Pride’s host and Cornwall native, Vicki Vivacious, hosted Pride with cheeky yet family-friendly jokes.
The line up of performers varied vastly in style, from the cover band Stone Roots to the drag act Poof. Despite this, the performers all had unencumbered joy in common.
Nathan Stubbings, a theatre performer from the Isle of Wight, sang many Broadway and pop songs from powerhouse legacies like Barbara Streisand and Whitney Houston, which the crowd received with joy and some “rolling on the river” choreography.
Otherwise, the Pride goers flocked to stalls from local, independent shops. Some standouts like the Queer Kernow Research stall which included a zine called The Olden Gays which won the Queer Kernow 2023 art competition. This zine educated about the queer history of Cornwall in an easily digestible format.
Amongst the performances, there were many more shoutouts to Cornwall Pride’s upcoming events like Redruth Pride (13 June) and Bodmin Pride (27 June). Most notably, there was much promotion for their ceilidh dance party which will be held soon on Saturday 9 May, as a fundraiser for Cornwall Pride.
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