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A full night of live Power Ballads is coming to Manchester

The Manc - 11th March 2020

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Manchester Pride Festival reveals 2023 line-up, including Pabllo Vittar, Jake Shears and Natasha Bedingfield

Daisy Jackson

Manchester Pride Festival has just revealed its 2023 line-up, promising the most diverse and representative bill of performers to date across the city’s world-famous Gay Village.

The beloved LGBTQ+ celebration will be back in the city over the August bank holiday weekend, shining a spotlight on local and international queer talent.

The Gay Village Party will have a line-up that’s 96% queer, with 54% of performers women, 51% people of colour, and more than 42% from trans and non-binary communities.

Headlining will be Brazilian drag sensation Pabllo Vittar, international pop star (and former Scissor Sisters vocalist) Jake Shears, and RuPaul’s Drag Race UK winner Danny Beard.

They’ll be joined by pop performances from Natasha Bedingfield, and Lisa Scott-Lee from STEPS.

The line-up has been co-created with Manchester’s queer communities, and will span four days and multiple venues and stages.

Manchester Pride Festival. Credit: Supplied

Manchester Pride Festival will once again host takeovers, including the Queer Asian Takeover, Trans Filth & Joy, Black Pride MCR and the Queer Women’s Takeover.

The main performances will take place on three stages; the Village stage, the Mancunity stage, and the Alan Turing stage.

Takeovers this year include the Queer Asian Takeover, Trans Filth & Joy, Black Pride MCR and the Queer Women’s Takeover.

Back to that line-up then, and Pabllo Vittar is the most-followed drag queen in the world, with a social following of 34.8m and 4m monthly listeners on Spotify.

The Manchester Pride march. Credit: Supplied

Meanwhile Jake Shears has dominated the charts while part of the Scissor Sisters with hits including Filthy/Gorgeous and I Don’t Feel Like Dancing. He’s now pursuing a solo career with a new album due to be released later this year.

Local drag star Danny Beard is also back on the line-up hosting Danny Beard and Friends for the fifth consecutive year.

Also returning to Manchester Pride Festival is multidimensional cultural icon Cheddar Gorgeous, who placed as runner-up in last year’s RuPaul’s Drag Race UK (beaten only by Danny Beard).

They’ll be joined by season four Drag Race UK stars Black Peppa and Dakota Schiffer.

The festival’s first Queer Asian Takeover will celebrate queer brown joy, headlined by international DJ Gok Wan, who will be joined on stage by local talent including The Bitten Peach, a gender-diverse, pan-Asian collective showcasing joy and excellence, Gracie T, who runs a South Asian creative collective and platform for unrepresented artists, and House of Spice, an LGBTQ+ South Asian and Middle Eastern performance house.

Trans led and curated event Trans Filth & Joy, hosted by Milk Presents and Trans Creative, returns for 2023 where party-goers can expect to be entertained by a night packed with DJs, drag, burlesque, cabaret, activism and music. Headlining Trans Filth & Joy is British drag queen BIMINI, who is best known for competing on the second series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK, and has since been awarded ‘Drag Hero’ by Gay Times magazine.

Black Pride MCR will take festival goers on a musical journey, celebrating the black roots of house music, disco, funky house, vocal and tribal, all brought together by exceptional DJs and iconic dancers.

Fat Pride also returns, celebrating big bodies with an evening of dancing, partying, showing off and feeling good.

The Cabaret Stage will again host The Enby Show, described as an ‘electric, unique and vibrant’ gender-bending variety show that ‘bins the binary and crashes the cis-tem’.

This stage will also host Pecs Drag Kings, a female/non-binary theatre and cabaret company who’ve been creating critically acclaimed shows for the LGBTQ+ community since 2013.

Manchester Pride Parade. Credit: Supplied

Festival goers can also expect exciting and diverse performances from Queeriosity Cabaret, Cutie-POC Cabaret, and Disabled Queer Joy Cabaret.

Other events announced as part of the Pride celebrations include Youth Pride MCR and Family Pride MCR, where young people and families will be able to join in the celebrations with a series of performances and events, such as Ginny Lemon’s Dog Show, an unmissable doggy extravaganza, and Disney Classics performed by The Untold Orchestra.

Other performers include Kelly Llorenna from N-Trance (Set You Free), Jodie Harsh, Misty Chance and Friends, Lucky Roy Singh, Queen Bayard, La Discothèque Orchestra, Manchester Residents Blasha and Allatt (Meat Free/Frixxxion), Kim Lana, Mix-Stress and Friends, SWAGGA, Monopoly Phonic, Kele Le Roc, and Tom Aspaul.

Mark Fletcher, CEO of Manchester Pride, said: “We have worked closely with our communities to offer a line-up that is for the community, by the community. As a world leading city and an organisation that is spearheading the global Pride movement, our aim is to provide a platform which elevates and showcases local queer performers alongside renowned international LGBTQ+ talent, with a little support from our allies. This is Manchester and this is how our communities want us to celebrate our Pride.

“We are so proud to announce that our line-up consists of 96% queer performers, 54% female performers, 51% people of colour, and over 42% trans and non-binary performers.”

Manchester Pride Festival, in partnership with Booking.com, takes place over four days in Manchester city centre on August bank holiday weekend (25 – 28 August) and is made up of several fringe events.

The events of Manchester Pride Festival 2023 are free to attend with the exception of the Gay Village Party, tickets for which can be purchased through Ticketmaster now. £2.50 from every ticket will be donated to the Manchester Pride Community Fund, with the money going directly to LGBTQ+ causes and projects in Greater Manchester through the distribution of grants.

The Manchester Pride Festival 2023 Gay Village Party line-up in full

Pabllo Vittar | Jake Shears

A Special Guest soon to be announced

To find out more about Manchester Pride, visit the website: www.manchesterpride.com

Featured image: Supplied

Audio

16-year-old Manc busker, Alex Spencer, bags record deal with the same label that launched The Lathums

Danny Jones Manc busker Alex Spencer musician record deal Modern Sky

16-year-old busker Alex Spencer’s career has gone from strength to strength in the past couple of years. Now, after starting out singing on the rainy streets of Manchester, he has managed to bag himself a record deal.

You absolutely love to see it.

Young Alex from Droylsden has been entertaining passersby on Market Street and people all around Greater Manchester for some time now, and after years of graft that only a true music-loving Manc could muster, the local lad is taking the next step in his promising career.

Having made the step up from being one of many talented Manc buskers to playing plenty of proper gigs and even serenading the likes of the City squad, he has now been signed by record label Modern Sky and is set to release his first official single this April.

Since stepping out of his home with a borrowed guitar under his arm as a young boy, Alex Spencer has gone from covering classics by 10CC, Arctic Monkeys and Sam Fender, to playing at the likes of New Century, Band on the Wall, Manchester Academy 3 and even in front of 20,000 at the AO Arena.

After securing an Arena slot as part of Young Voices’ ones to look out for in 2022 and even getting some airplay on Radio X, the teenager was spotted by the very same record company that launched The Lathums, Jamie Webster, Brooke Combe and even The Coral back in the day.

Now, Alex is focusing on writing songs of his own and has recently finished five for his upcoming EP, one of those being his lead single, ‘A Night To Waste’, with all of them set to be released via Modern Sky.

This, however, isn’t the first time we’ve come across Alex; The Manc Audio has had the pleasure of chatting and watching him busk on a number of occasions. This was the most recent.

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We’re beyond chuffed to see how far he’s come in such a short space of time and can’t wait to see him go far — which, of course, he definitely will.

Speaking ahead of the release of his debut record, Alex said: “It’s about the life of a teenager who wants to live their life a little and get out of the same old boring suburb. It’s about enjoying a good time with your friends and reminding you that none of us have a night to waste.

“It’s the same for so many people my age, especially after all the setbacks we’ve had over the past few years with lockdowns stopping us in our tracks.”

‘A Night To Waste’ drops on 25 April 2023; we were fortunate enough to get a sneak peek and, believe us, you’re in for a treat. This boy’s going to be big, so be sure to keep up to date with what he’s got coming next.

Featured Image — Alex Spencer (via Instagram)

A full night of live Power Ballads is coming to Manchester

Manchester Pride Festival reveals 2023 line-up, including Pabllo Vittar, Jake Shears and Natasha Bedingfield

Read more

The Manchester Pride Festival 2023 Gay Village Party line-up in full

16-year-old Manc busker, Alex Spencer, bags record deal with the same label that launched The Lathums

Read more:

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