{"id":234929,"date":"2025-07-03T14:31:15","date_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:31:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/234929\/"},"modified":"2025-07-03T14:31:15","modified_gmt":"2025-07-03T14:31:15","slug":"noughties-star-headlining-street-party-on-hidden-alleyway","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/234929\/","title":{"rendered":"Noughties star headlining street party on hidden alleyway"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Masquerade Bar is the latest Pride Quarter venue to reveal its acts for the day<\/p>\n

15:09, 03 Jul 2025Updated 15:09, 03 Jul 2025<\/p>\n

\"TheThe Masquerade Bar has been in Liverpools Pride Quarter for over 30 years.(Image: Andy Green)<\/p>\n

The headliner for this year\u2019s Pride Street party has been announced, and it\u2019s a noughties star. On Saturday, July 26, hundreds of the LGBTQ+ community and its allies<\/a> are expected to pack out Cumberland Street for The Masquerade’s annual celebrations.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s an event many look forward to each year, with previous acts including Kerry Katona, The Cheeky Girls as well as up-and-coming local acts. This year\u2019s edition will see former Sugababe icon Amelle Berrabah take the headline slot.<\/a> Joining her in the line-up are drag queens Brenda LaBeau, Violet, and Shania Pain and Carmen Sutra.<\/a> A number of tribute acts will also be performing. The line-up comes just days after it was announced that Liverpool Pride was back on after being initially cancelled.<\/p>\n

The 2025 celebrations are said to be coming back with the promise of being \u201clouder, prouder and truly ours\u201d. The city-wide event and march was initially cancelled for the year,<\/a> with the organisers citing “significant financial and organisational challenges”.<\/p>\n

\"AmelleAmelle Berrabah of Sugababes performs during Day two of V Festival(Image: Gareth Cattermole\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n

The organisers said they “listened to the community” and took the decision to cut ties with sponsors Barclays, which created further issues with staging the annual event. LCR Pride Foundation, the organisation behind Pride in Liverpool<\/a> and the city\u2019s annual March with Pride, then “regretfully” announced that the Saturday, July 26, would not go ahead in a lengthy statement shared with the ECHO.<\/a><\/p>\n

However, earlier this week, Sahir House, the city\u2019s oldest LGBTQ+ charity<\/a>, announced it has managed to \u201cturn things around\u201d. The group said: \u201cWe can\u2019t wait to show you what is coming. From an exciting new march route to a queer arena celebration not to be missed.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"LiverpoolLiverpool Pride back in 2010, outside The Masquerade Bar(Image: John Harrison )<\/p>\n

The charity also said this year will include activities for young people and families, a Pride Quarter party and \u201cso much more\u201d. It ended the announcement with the promise that \u201cThis Pride is for everyone\u201d. The ECHO will be bringing you all the details about the new event as and when they are available.<\/a><\/p>\n

Sahir has stepped in to help facilitate and coordinate the community-led Pride. However, with only a few weeks notice, the charity has created a GoFundMe to help with the costs. The target is \u00a360,000 with \u00a340,000 of it being used to deliver the celebrations and the rest to protect the life-changing work Sahir does all year round. You can donate here.<\/a><\/p>\n

LCR Pride Foundation\u2019s Board of Directors previously said it was struggling because of being \u201can almost entirely volunteer-led operation.\u201d This, coupled with significant financial and organisational challenges, led to the cancellation of the Pride celebrations the city has grown to know and love over the last handful of years.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe 2024 Liverpool Pride march makes its way through the city centre<\/p>\n

The initial statement said: \u201cIn recent months, the charity has faced significant financial and organisational challenges, which have impacted timescales and resulted in it reverting to an almost entirely volunteer-led operation. This, combined with rising costs and difficulty securing national and local funding, has made it impossible to bring Pride in Liverpool to the city this year.<\/p>\n

\u201cHaving listened to our community, we also recently took the decision to sever our relationship with Barclays, which created further delays to planning. While we are confident that this was the right decision, it is one that has had a substantial impact at an already challenging time.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur small team had been working closely with key partners and some fantastic city-based sponsors right up until the end of May to try to ensure the march went ahead, but despite all best efforts we were unable to make it feasible.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are devastated that we will not be able to march together this year, at a time when coming together to stand in solidarity, protest and celebration is needed more than ever, and we understand how difficult this will be for our community.<\/p>\n

\u201cHowever, we strongly believe that it is the right decision to ensure both the continuation of the organisation and to enable the return of Pride in Liverpool and our march in 2026.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe believe that our beautiful, resilient city region deserves a consistent, safe and community-led pride celebration each and every year, and our priority now is to ensure that we have a sustainable foundation to secure that, through working with our community, and with partners, funders and sponsors that align with our values.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Masquerade Bar is the latest Pride Quarter venue to reveal its acts for the day 15:09, 03…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":234930,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8815],"tags":[748,393,4884,14721,179,2349,67614,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-234929","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-liverpool","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-england","10":"tag-great-britain","11":"tag-lgbtqia","12":"tag-liverpool","13":"tag-liverpool-city-centre","14":"tag-liverpool-pride","15":"tag-uk","16":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114789789663807044","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234929","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=234929"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/234929\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/234930"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=234929"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=234929"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=234929"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}