| Support dress with Pride, 
Liverpool 2016!Photograph by
David Munn and Bond Media.
 
 
LOVERPOOL'S business community is being encouraged to 
support a new initiative to raise awareness of City's LGBT communities and 
Liverpool Pride Festival 2016. 
 Organisers of Liverpool Pride Festival 2016 
are inviting the City's retail and commercial sectors to get behind Dress With 
Pride, an exciting new addition to the festival for 2016.
 Dress With Pride will see customer facing organisations; such as shops, bars, 
restaurants, visitor attractions, hotels and offices; allow their employees to 
swap their usual uniforms and work attire to don colourful and creative costumes 
throughout the week of the Liverpool Pride Festival 2016.
 
 Businesses taking part will be showing their support for Liverpool Pride 
Festival 2016; their LGBT staff and customers; the City; and the wider LGBT 
communities.
 
 
Liverpool Pride Festival 2016 offers a week long programme 
starting on Saturday, 23 July 2016. The festival culminates with a 2 day event 
the following weekend, over Saturday 30 July and Sunday, 31 July 2016, which 
takes place in the St George's Cultural Quarter, featuring the well established 
Liverpool Pride March on the Saturday.
 Liverpool Pride is now a key highlight in the City's Summer events programme, 
attracting more than 25,000 people each year to attend, take part and support 
the annual LGBT festival.
 
 Participating businesses and venues will be asked to invite customers and 
visitors to make a donation to help support the work of Liverpool Pride going 
forward; and to develop their own creative ways to encourage customers to dig 
deeper.
 
 Staff members are encouraged to use Liverpool Icons; the theme of Liverpool 
Pride Festival 2016; as their inspiration for their chosen outfit. 
Alternatively, they are invited to wear clothing in the colours of the global 
LGBT rainbow symbol to also show their support. Participants are also invited to 
make a small donation to take part.
 
 
Dress With Pride joins another new addition for Liverpool Pride 
Festival 2016. Come Out Of The Shadows is a new project and is supported by the 
Police Commissioner's Fund as a Hate Crime initiative. The initiative is to 
encourage the City's key organisations and buildings to light up their venues in 
the iconic rainbow colours throughout the week of Liverpool Pride (23 July to 31 
July 2016) in a bid to make Liverpool the most visibly LGBT friendly City in the 
UK.
 Michael Carey from Liverpool Pride explained:- "Dress With Pride is a fun 
way to get the business community involved in the festival and celebrate all 
things LGBT, while also raising awareness and embracing the week long event. 
This year's theme of Liverpool Icons is already generating plenty of excitement, 
so we would love to see customer facing staff across the city become icons of 
their own businesses during the festival. The initiative will also provide a 
platform to help raise funds to support the Liverpool Pride Charity. Dress With 
Pride will fully complement our new Come Out Of The Shadows project to light up 
the city. Seeing them both come to fruition for Liverpool Pride 2016 will give 
the festival a huge boost."
 
 This year, the all new Liverpool Pride Festival 2016 will take a more prominent 
and visual position in the city, taking over St George's Cultural Quarter 
including St George's Hall, The Plateau, William Brown Street, and St John's 
Gardens.
 The festival will be organised and delivered 
by Orb Events, the Liverpool based company who created the very first Pride 
event in 2010.
 As always, the festival coincides with the anniversary of murdered gay teenager 
Michael Causer, who tragically lost his life on 2 August 2008. The Liverpool 
Pride festival was specifically created in his memory as a way to celebrate his 
life and to empower the LGBT communities.
 
 Liverpool Pride is keen to hear from public or private sector companies or 
organisations who would like to become involved in the 2016 festival.
 
 There are a number of ways to support Liverpool Pride, 
including partnership working, sponsorship and advertising.
 Keep up to date with Liverpool Pride's new announcements keep an eye on:- 
LiverpoolPride.Co.UK.
 |  | Thousands of Merseyside car 
journeys abandoned as children jump on bikesPhotograph by Livia Lazar from LDA 
Media
 
 LIVERPOOL Loves returns to the world 
famous Pier Head, on Saturday, 6 August 2016, to celebrate and promote the best 
of Liverpool life under the themes of Culture, Food and Wellbeing. 
 Last year's event was a resounding success and was hailed one of the stand out 
moments of 2015, with over 27,000 people attending across the weekend.  And 
now, Josh Boyd from Orb CIC is excited to announce some of the key programme 
partners that visitors can expect to see down at the feel good festival's 
vibrant and colourful site this summer.
 
 Liverpool Loves is working with a range of events and cultural organisations to 
produce a dynamic programme of entertainment that offers something for all ages 
and interests; aiming to spread the love and put a big smile on people's faces.  
The purpose of this collaboration is to give Liverpool Loves visitors a taster 
of the very best of the City's culture scene; including:- The Guide, BBC Radio 
Merseyside, Liverpool Arab Arts Festival, China Pearl, Milap Fest, Viva Brasil, 
SoulFest and Liverpool Disco Festival.
 
 This year's Main Stage is tipped to be bigger and better than ever; welcoming a 
range of rising local favourites and some fantastic headline talent.
 The daytime programme runs from 12pm to 5pm 
and Liverpool Loves has teamed up with city entertainment aficionados The Guide, 
which is programmed and hosted by Jay Hynd, to present some of the best artists 
from Liverpool's burgeoning music scene. 
 The evening programme follows up from 5pm to 9pm with BBC Radio Merseyside and 
BBC Introducing's Dave Monks; showcasing local stars of tomorrow alongside well 
established, high profile acts. Exciting announcements for the various stage 
line ups are to follow in the next few weeks.
 Newly branded for this year; the Culturebox 
tent showcases the City's diverse international communities through music, dance 
and traditional arts. This dazzling, family friendly stage runs between 12pm and 
6pm.  
 Liverpool Arab Arts Festival will be on hand 
to provide a taste of North Africa and the Middle East; China Pearl and Huayun 
Arts return with a range of beautiful traditional Chinese music and dance; 
alongside the fantastic Milap Fest, who'll offer up a show-stopping array of 
Indian sounds. The premier Brazilian and Afro-fusion samba bloco, Katumba will 
provide a scintillating performance with the Viva Brasil carnival dancers and 
the HeartBeat Drumming Circle have a special, surprise performance planned for 
the festival finale. 
 As well as an exciting programme of animation and activity, Circo's famous 
circus performers and show stopping acts will be performing across the site and 
the Main Stage.
 
 Putting a bit of soul into the heart of the event; the hotly tipped SoulFest by 
Soul Inspired Events CIC are confirmed to take over a section of the programme, 
supported by exciting newcomers Liverpool Disco Festival who'll be playing 
vintage funk, disco and soulful house classics until late.
 
 Finally, The Rider will be running a final stage to showcase emerging local 
artistes, alongside the brilliant Merseyrail Soundstation pop up with a more 
intimate offer of acoustic sets.
 
 Fitting in with Liverpool Loves' commitment to showcasing sole traders and local 
businesses; Independent Liverpool will build on their already growing event 
programme this year by hosting a producer's festival market on site; alongside 
the much loved Capstan's Bazaar, who'll show off the best local makers from 
around the region with all things arts and crafts.
 
 News about stage line ups, the family and children's programmes and Liverpool 
Loves Wellbeing activities are to follow soon.
 
 The team behind Liverpool based social 
enterprise, Orb CIC has a strong, proven track record in staging major city 
events and festivals and are pulling out all the stops to ensure that this 
year's event is one to remember.  Event organiser, Josh Boyd, said:- 
"The team at Orb CIC are very excited to announce our 1st wave of programme 
partners for this summer. As 'The People's Festival' it's really important that 
we showcase the amazing things that go on all year round across the City Region 
(Merseyside) that are important to Liverpool people; and our initial partners 
for 2016 certainly do just that. If anyone is reading this story that feels they 
fit in with the exciting, hippy, happy vibe of what we're putting together and 
would like to be a part of Liverpool Loves 2016; please contact us via:-
info@liverpoolloves.co.uk to discuss how we might get you involved."
 Find out more at:- 
LiverpoolLoves.Co.UK  and get involved 
by emailing your details to:- 
LiverpoolLoves@orb-events.co.uk
 
 Follow them on Facebook / Liverpool Loves and Twitter @LiverpoolLoves
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