The sky is clear and the sun is shining in Sheffield, marking yet have another busy month as Pride season continues.
Following on from the success of their busiest event to date last year, LGBT Sheffield’s Pinknic returns on Sat 15 July. The event will commence with their LGBTQ+ Unity March from Barkers Pool to the main event at the Peace Gardens, with stalls from the city’s various LGBTQ+ groups and organisations available to peruse. Joining the spectacle will be an afternoon of performances from Electric Blue, Emma Maezin, Rio, Adam Heyes, Stevie Moore, Ink Dance, Jade and Patricia Lynn. The official afterparty will continue at Revolución de Cuba, hosted by Emma Maezin featuring live performances, guest entertainers, games and shot limbo with a soundtrack of clubland, floorfillers, pride anthems and pure pop excellence.
You can see Emma Maezin around the city at her regular nights including Dragaoke (every Thursday) at Maggie Mays, Drag Karaoke (Fri 7 Jul) at Bagshaw Arms, more Drag Karaoke (Fri 14/Sat 22) at Ball Inn, and Drag Bingo (Wed 12 Jul) and Bottomless Brunch and Drag Show (Sun 23 Jul) at Revolución de Cuba. Emma will also be joining forces with Bipolar Abdul for a Drag Bingo Pride Special (Wed 19 Jul) at Hagglers Corner, coming together for the first time EVER! That’s double the performances, double the glam, double the fun! Non-binary Drag Artist Bipolar Abdul will also be back at The Dorothy Pax ,hosting their new monthly queer friendly indie night Friends of Dorothy [Wed 26 Jul] with great tunes and drag performances, all based around alternative indie music.
This year, we finally see the first Pride event to take place in the city since Covid as organisers of the recent Joy, Power, Protest Trans March are back to host Sheffield Radical Pride (Sat 22 Jul). At the time of writing, final details are to be announced but check out their socials to see what they have planned for the day. CYB3R will be back at DINA venue that evening for CYB3R – Tramlines Fringe Pride Afterparty (Sat 22 Jul) – a collective of queer artists that bring hyperpop/electronic/dance music events to Sheffield providing a safe space for the LGBTQ+ community to party their hardest.
Sheffield’s best, weirdest (and only) drag monster cabaret King Confuza’s Cryptid Queers (Sat 15 Jul) is back at Bal Fashions – bigger and better than ever with special guest co-host Gilly Woo spotlighting rising monster talent from Sheffield and beyond. This time around they are offering club-only entry tickets from midnight, so if drag isn’t your thing, you can still come and dance to their incredible guest DJs once the final floor show ends.
The Funky Beavers’ Miss Cleo will be heading out to Dinnington’s Lyric Theatre with Queen Bingo (Sat 22 Jul) for a night of games. There’s more bingo fun at the OEC’s Summer Big Drag Bingo (Sat 29 Jul) – dress to impress in your best beachwear and summer outfits to win some amazing prizes! And there is, of course, plenty of drag over at the Malin Bridge Inn, whose lineup this month includes The Miss Bella End Show (Sat 1 Jul), Vivian Twist Drag DJ (Sat 15 Jul) and Tanya Minge’s Drag Queen Bingo (Fri 28 Jul).
Sheffield Central Library will be hosting a special Pride Month film screening of Queerama (Wed 19 Jul) – a story traversing a century of gay experiences, encompassing persecution and prosecution, injustice, love, desire, identity, secrets, forbidden encounters, sexual liberation and pride. They will also be joined this month by Kit Heyam talking about their book Before We Were Trans (Mon 10 Jul) – a new and different story of gender, that seeks not to be comprehensive or definitive, but – by blending culture, feminism and politics – to widen the scope of what we think of as trans history by telling the stories of people across the globe whose experience of gender has been transgressive, or not characterised by stability or binary categories.
There will be more opportunity to learn about of queer histories from SAYiT’s Fiona Moorcroft at the lunchtime talk Queer Elders Up North (Tue 4 Jul), uncovering the lives of Northern queer elders in history. You’ll find out about the young men and women who travelled from the north of England to Wales to meet with the Ladies of Llangollen during the Regency era. Fiona will also explore the influence of Edward Carpenter’s lectures on sexuality and gender at the end of the 1800s, and the young people who flocked to hear more.
All of these events happen largely through the dedication of various members of our communities working throughout the year to create a lively and diverse scene. If you would like to be one of them, head to the Queer Fest Planning Meeting [Mon 17 Jul] at Showroom Café, where you can join the team planning the latest festival event to be added to next year’s LGBTQ+ calendar.
That’s your lot for this month! Do make sure to check out the latest event announcements at here.
