Major Pride will take place on 1 September in Llantwit Major. | Photo: Major Pride/Facebook
Llantwit Major will be the first Welsh town in the Vale of Glamorgan to host a Pride parade.
Major Pride (Pride Mawr in Welsh) will take place on 1 September. The parade will create a precedent and prompt other towns to follow in its footstep.
The primary aim of Major Pride is to celebrate the diversity in the historic town and put Llantwit Major on the map for the LGBTI community together with Cardiff and Swansea, hosting the biggest parades in Wales.
The activities of Major Pride
Celebrations will kick off on 31 August, with a switching on the lights at the historic pub White Hart. It will be renamed the Rainbow Hart in honor of Pride.
Pride bunting, banners, and flags will spread the rainbow colors around town ahead of the event.
Activities on the day will include a local business competition to set up the best Pride window display and a dog show.
There will also be an itinerant choir performance by LBT all-female Songbirds Choir Cardiff and a classic car display. Moreover, the Wine Street Knitting group will unveil their unique crocheted Pride tree trunk cover.
The event will round off with an evening of music and entertainment from pink-haired drag queen Mary Golds.
A Pride for small-town boys and girls
‘Living here gave me the idea of looking for a way to celebrate the diversity of this beautiful coastal town,’ the organizer of Major Pride Rhodri Ellis Owen explained.
‘Major Pride seemed to fit as a way to bring all parts of the community together. We are not a big city and can do our own thing, rather than follow the traditional larger Pride models. This is a community event which everyone can hopefully feel a part of.’
He also highlighted the support the event has received from the whole town.
‘I think it’s a way for the young generations to think things are possible in this town and I don’t have to pretend to be something else […] because I feel the community might not approve of that,’ he said in an interview with BBC Wales.
‘Whether you’re a small town boy or a small town girl […] you don’t have to leave that small town anymore to be you.’
Other Welsh towns might follow suit
The event has received the support of Pride Cymru, the annual LGBTI event hosted in the capital, Cardiff.
‘Hopefully, this can inspire small towns, villages across Wales to do something similar,’ said chair of Pride Cymru Lu Thomas.
‘We at Pride Cymru are very happy to support the event in any way we can.’
Read more about Prides:
This Cardiff Pride’s future is in jeopardy – and it all comes down to parking spots
7 US Pride festivals off the beaten track that will blow you away
Cornwall hosted the first Pride tour in the world and the pictures are dreamy
