Pride Month

Silver Pride Is Here To Celebrate & Support LGBTQ+ Elders

Here’s how you can attend & donate to the digital festival.

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Woman in rainbow coat posing in the middle of the street.
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The success of Channel 4’s It’s a Sin and Shon Faye’s Call Me Mother podcast over the past year indicates a renewed interest in the lives and experiences of older members of the LGBTQ+ community, many of whom campaigned and fought hard for the freedoms younger LGBTQ+ people enjoy today.

To honour those who came before us, the second annual Silver Pride is back for another unique online festival that aims to celebrate older members of the LGBTQ+ community.

If you’d like to discover more about the multi-generational event, you can find everything you need to know about Silver Pride 2021 and how to get involved below.

What Is Silver Pride?

The annual Silver Pride festival is a digital event designed to uplift and connect older LGBTQ+ people through a lineup of online sessions and events, many of which are fronted by some very familiar faces and pillars of the LGBTQ+ community.

The theme of this year’s Silver Pride festival is “everyday heroes,” and, commenting on the second annual event, Silver Pride Founder Craig Burton explained that he hopes to “create conversations about and generate noise around the lives of older LGBT+ folks, as well as promoting intergenerational communication.”

“These ambitions are reflected in our programme: it’s aimed at older people but there really is something for everyone,” Burton added.

When Is Silver Pride?

Silver Pride 2021 takes place over three days between Friday, July 30 and Sunday, August 1, and tickets to attend the online event are completely free.

“We’ve made tickets free this year because we want to make the festival as accessible as possible,” Burton explained. “Though we hope folks will consider donating what they can afford so Silver Pride can support grassroots LGBT+ groups and organisations across the UK.”

The Silver Pride 2021 Lineup

This year’s packed Silver Pride schedule includes an Opening Gala hosted by the Broadway and Hollywood star, Alan Cumming, a Big Saturday Interview with Emmerdale actor Michelle Hardwick, an insightful conversation between actor and writer Simon Callow and theatre director, Robert Hastie, a sit-down session with Straight Jacket author Matthew Todd and novelist Matt Cain, and a pub-style lock-in with writers Paul Flynn and Jeremy Atherton-Lin.

During the three-day festival, digital attendees can also expect to enjoy discussion panels, a cook-along and singalong, specially commissioned films including Drag Queen Story Hours and This is Me — and a sneak preview of Lee Cooper’s forthcoming documentary Maisie.

How To Get Involved

To get involved with Silver Pride 2021, you can pick up your free digital ticket here, and attendees are encouraged to get into the spirit at home by hosting their very own Silver Pride event to coincide with the online festival.

Alternatively, you can also donate here to the special Silver Pride fund, which is overseen by the LGBT Consortium and distributed to groups catering for older LGBT+ people.

To support the annual festival, limited edition prints are also currently available for purchase, the proceeds of which will also go to the Silver Pride fund.

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