Manchester Is About to Witness the Queer Festival Everyone’s Been Waiting For

True Pride launches in Manchester on 1 August 2026 with a fierce queer‑curated festival featuring Planningtorock, jasmine.4.t, The Irrepressibles and The Hidden Cameras. A full day‑to‑night celebration of LGBTQI+ music, art, performance and community at Hidden.

True Pride is set to explode onto Manchester’s summer calendar as a fierce new LGBTQI+ festival taking over Hidden on Saturday 1 August 2026 — and it’s already shaping up to be one of the year’s most unapologetically queer cultural moments.

Born from frustration, anger and a whole lot of love, True Pride arrives with a mission: to reclaim Pride as a space where queer artists, queer voices and queer audiences are not pushed to the sidelines but placed unapologetically at the centre. Curated entirely by LGBTQ+ creatives — including Jamie Irrepressible alongside Manchester’s own DJ Bollibubbles, DJ Sandra D, Liam Walsh and Sally McFerran — the festival is a direct response to the ongoing underrepresentation of queer talent in mainstream Pride programming.

The debut edition comes armed with a headline trio that reads like a manifesto. Planningtorock brings visionary trans electronic experimentation; jasmine.4.t delivers emotionally charged transfemme songwriting; and viral homo cult band The Irrepressibles unleash their symphonic indie‑punk‑rock chaos. They’re joined by Canada’s Joel Gibb and The Hidden Cameras, performing intimate, guitar‑driven queer anthems with the festival’s in‑house string quartet.

Running from day into night, True Pride promises a full‑scale takeover of Hidden’s rooms and floors, blending live music, DJs, comedy, talks, film, wellness and performance. The Acoustic Stage spotlights Queer as F*ck — Manchester’s beloved grassroots open mic platform exclusively for LGBTQ+ artists — alongside a packed roster of performers. After midnight, the middle floor transforms into a DILF takeover, with DJs Dan Louder and Nick Charles spinning exclusively queer artists and queer‑voiced tracks until 2am.

The wider lineup is stacked with queer talent, including DJ Bollibubbles, Leo Chadburn, DJ Sandra D, Kerry Leigh, Ollie Becker, Run Remedy, Alabaster Queen and Jamie Irrepressible (PA/DJ set), with more names still to be announced.

True Pride also arrives with a commitment to future queer voices. Of Naked Design has launched the OND Fund, offering £2,000 annually to two UK queer songwriters from disadvantaged backgrounds — with both recipients set to perform at the festival.

«True Pride is about creating a space where queer artists, audiences and stories are not on the sidelines but at the centre», says Jamie Irrepressible. «It’s about building something celebratory, representative and genuinely exciting — a platform for both emerging voices and established artists across the community».

True Pride takes place at Hidden, 16–18 Mary Street, Manchester M3 1NH, and is strictly 18+. Tickets are available now via DICE, with Early Bird prices set at £22.71 for students, disabled people and unemployed attendees, and £28.38 for General Admission.