Reading DIY Pride

Home of a Pride for queer trans-inclusive, intersectional, anti-racist, anti-caplitalist folks.

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CHANGES TO DIY PRIDE READING 2025

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DIY Pride Reading 2025 CANCELLED ... SORT OF

We have some bad news. We have had to cancel DIY Pride. It was not an easy decision for us to make and we apologise for how close it comes to the much-anticipated day. However, we felt it was an important and necessary decision to make. We value transparency and honesty and want to let you know more about why we have chosen this course of action.

Overview

While we’ve had to cancel, we will be running a replacement event at the same location as before: DIY Anti-Corporate Hootenanny (about which, more below). We would love for members of our community to turn up on the day if they can, with the knowledge that this event is now even more DIY. Our DIY Anti-Corporate Hootenanny will have a much smaller capacity (no more than 50 inside the Rising Sun Arts Centre at any one time) and will also be more DIY in attitude and aesthetics. We still require volunteers and all hands will be welcome! Due to the nature of the DIY Anti-Corporate Hootenanny, we must be even more respectful of our neighbours when using the outside space for light socialising. We ask that those attending continue masking while inside the venue. We are also limiting the event to those over the age of 18 or for under 18s to be accompanied by an adult.

Covid in the community

Our main reason for cancelling is the challenges resulting from several committee members testing positive to Covid or being in close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid. On Monday, one committee member tested positive for Covid. A number of other committee members have been in close contact with this person and at least one other committee member has subsequently tested positive.

With so many committee members (who are also coordinating and volunteering on the day), we could not go ahead on the day with the event as originally planned. We prioritise the health of our community and committee. Were those in close contact with the committe members who tested positive to attend and perform their duties on the day, there would be a risk of spreading Covid, even if they tested negative in the lead up and/or on the day. We deemed continuing as planned neither ethical nor safe, and so took the decision to ask these individuals to continue their quarantine instead of attending the event. We took this decision knowing it would result in a significant lack of capacity.

Capacity in the committee

DIY Pride Reading works on the basis that each committee member takes on a share of the responsibilities and duties for planning as well as on the day happenings. Since many of the leads for roles will no longer attend, any event would need significant temporary cover for on-the-day roles. We carefully assessed the feasibility of providing temporary cover from within the committee and existing pool of volunteers. Ultimately, we decided that there was not sufficient capacity to run the event as planned; we would need more time and resources to do so. In some instances, we concluded that it would be inappropriate for a role to be covered on a temporary basis at short notice.

At present capacity, we would be relying on very few members of the committee to cover all of the duties for running the daytime and evening events, putting strain on the capacity of each person. For the welfare of our own team, we decided the event was no longer viable to be run as it had originally been intended to.

Creating an alternative to DIY Pride as planned

Since Monday, we have been discussing how we might move forward with the day and event, as well as alternative options. We feel DIY Pride is an important community gathering and alternative to Reading Pride, also occurring on the same day. As such, we gave careful consideration to various options of running the same event. Given the reasons we set out above, we came to the conclusion that, for the sanity of all involved, the best outcome was to cancel DIY and replace it with a smaller event–hence our DIY Anti-Corporate Hootenanny.

If you would like to attend our alternative event, we are running this via door sales only, on a first-come, first-served basis continuing at a donate-what-you can price. All donations will cover any running costs and any left over donations will be donated to charity. Please be aware that as the venue capacity is now 50 people within the building at any given time, we may have to ask you to wait outside until a less busy time. For more details, see below

How we processing the cancellation

Tickets will be refunded in full to all ticket holders, so you should receive confirmation of this from OutSavvy very soon. Please allow up to 5 business days for your refund to process.

We are sorry that we are making these changes at such short notice and we are coming to you with them at the earliest possible opportunity and we apologise for any inconvenience this has caused. Please do remain in touch with us about any further questions or concerns—we welcome the feedback!

With Love & Solidarity, The DIY Pride Committee

ANNOUNCING OUR DIY ANTI-CORPORATE HOOTENANNY*

(Try typing that 10 times fast in different tabs and on different devices!)

* We are now even more DIY than before!

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WHAT: DIY Anti-Corporate Hootenanny

This will be a stripped back event with the itinerary very up in the air. We will release more details and information as and when we can, but we need to ensure the event will happen first! We will be focusing on joy, a space to come together as a community, and doing what fundraising we can for our ongoing goals!

WHERE: Rising Sun Arts Centre (on Silver Street)

WHEN: Still on Saturday 30 August 2025 from

HOW: Tickets are DONATE-WHAT-YOU-CAN on the door. A £5 donation will get you 1 ticket for the raffle; a £10 donation will get your 5 raffle tickets!

What might happen:

What will happen:

What won’t happen:

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