Our Story

Chippenham Pride takes a full year to put on.  The team (made up completely of volunteers) have been busy working on bringing you the best of local entertainment, small business retailers, inspirational speakers and hilarious comedy acts. It’s our aim to provide Chippenham with not only a Pride event, the town can be proud of, but also a family event that welcomes everyone no matter what their gender, sexuality, colour or age.

We invite you to explore our website where you’ll find more details on:

• The acts, their bios and stage times.
• You’ll see our amazing small business providing you with retail stalls.
• There’s help and information on our well-being tab with links to help you get support at the touch of a button.
• See the awesome bios of our inspiring speakers and their stage times
• Purchase our unique merchandise ahead of the day
• And see who our awesome sponsors and supporters are

The team are committed to providing a safe and inclusive space and event for all. Our primary aim of reaching out to all who need help and support.

This is where it started, it was then that I realised that there were quite so many new identities. Thrown back into that mind field I realised that if I didn’t understand my child’s new identity how on earth were other parents who weren’t in the community going to know? How were these teenagers (and adults) who were re-identifying themselves going to get help and support? My research showed little in the way of visible local support so I formed a Facebook LGBTQIA+ support group. I put it out there to parents and kids, to young and old, to the community and their allies. The conversation started, and a few reached out for support from others in the group. After about 6 months we started to do in-person socials. This was something I felt was extremely important, firstly because I wanted to show that there’s a local (hopefully friendly) face behind the group, secondly, after COVID we all needed that reassurance of in-person interaction.

In June 2022 we had a pride picnic in Monkton Park. It was a great day with around 20 families joining in the games including a good old game of rounders. It was at this event I declared we needed to put on a Pride event. The reaction was positive and I imagined about 100 people enjoying some music in the park with some stalls and games. Essentially a larger-scale picnic with music. Having put a shout-out up on social media my committee of amazing volunteers formed overnight and we spent the following 12 months on a very sharp learning curve and managed to pull together a SPECTACULAR event attended by over 4,500 people with 10 hours of main-stage entertainment, three stages, an after party and so much more. 

And in our adrenaline-filled wisdom, the very next day set about making 2024 bigger and better! Its going to be a crazy year but we are dedicated and can't wait to see you all on the 15th June 2024