MANCHESTER, August 28  —  Manchester is miffed today.  The official figure put on those watching yesterday’s Key 103 Pride Parade was “in excess of 200,000”.  But many American newspapers were this morning reporting that just 45,000 lined the streets of Manchester to watch the colourful parade.

Were we hearing things yesterday when the official figures were announced by both the organisers and the police?  Apparently, no.  And a spokesperson for the Greater Manchester Police confirmed the figure this morning.

“I don’t know where the 45,000 came from,” the spokesman said.  “Perhaps they were just counting those watching in one street.  It was definitely 200,000.”

The article that appeared in papers across America originated from the Associated Press who, it is thought, got the figure from the number of ‘Big Weekend’ tickets sold for the four-day party.  And for public safety reasons, 45,000 is the limit put on those inside the city’s “gay village”.

Festivities continue today a performance of “What a Difference a Gay Makes”, a musical history that starts with the 1969 Stonewall riots in New York and ends with the Civil Partnership Act of 2004.  The show is presented by Lesbian and Gay Youth Manchester at the Zion Arts Centre.

And musicals are the theme at the Hollywood Showbar in Bloom Street with “Musicals of the Dark Side”, which features such shows as The Little Shop of Horrors, Phantom of the Opera and The Rocky Horror Show.

Tomorrow (Monday) sees the annual HIV Candlelit Vigil in Sackville Park at 9pm.

The Vigil is the closing event of Manchester Pride 2005 when the ‘Big Weekend’ takes a minute to remember the people we have lost to the HIV/AIDSvirus, and to join together to fight the epidemic world-wide.

There will be a variety of readings, poems and music based around the theme of remembrance.  The Vigil is the spiritual heart of the Manchester Pride weekend and there is a truly magical and moving atmosphere as Sackville Park stands in quiet reflection in the flickering candlelight.

< Seven pages of photographs — 42 in all — from the Pride Parade starts here.

Army Finds It’s ‘Queer Up North” As It Debuts at Gay Pride - UK Gay News (August 27)

See also Manchester Evening News report Thousands Flock To Gay Pride Parade and Pride Protests a Damp Squid, by Dean Kirby.