With Pride just around the corner, GARETH DAVIES takes a look back at how The Argus covered the festival ten years ago. There may have been a big change in same-sex marriage law this year, but rainbows, elaborate costumes and the feel-good factor of Brighton and Hove remain unchanged after a decade.

Organisers of the 2004 Pride celebrations believed that year’s record-breaking festival was worth £5 million to the city.

The event was thought to have attracted the largest crowds in its 30 year history with up to 110,000 revellers descending on Brighton and Hove.

Jamie Hakim, a spokesman for Pride in Brighton and Hove 2004, said: “I have been talking to a lot of people and they are saying this was the best parade there has been and the estimate for the crowd is between 100,000 and 110,000. People thought the floats were better than ever and there was a lot more cohesion in the parade. It was a spectacular success.

“It strikes me that half of London’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender population came down. It seems to be the Pride of choice in the UK now.

“If Pride made £4.1 million last year I guess you can increase that by another 20%.”

Brighton was filled with flamboyant costumes and colourful characters at Britain’s biggest free festival for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community.

It was the one day of the year when it seemed perfectly natural to see people walking through the busy streets wearing nothing but a leather thong and a smile.

The festival kicked off with a spectacular parade of 5,000 people following more than 60 floats in the sunshine from Madeira Drive to Preston Park carrying rainbow-coloured flags and banging drums.

The carnival had picked The Hit Parade as its theme in celebration of gay icons Abba winning the Eurovision Song Contest in Brighton 30 years before with their smash hit Waterloo.

Eyecatching performers and dancers, some sweltering under elaborate costumes and others wearing just bikini briefs, followed a new route through the heart of the city to Preston Park.

Mr Hakim said: “It has been absolutely fantastic. The new parade through the centre of the city was a great thing to do and the whole day was a complete success.”

Entertainment included dancing, cabaret, a fairground, a circus big top, line dancing and gay choirs.

Recruiting stands for Sussex and Kent Police sat alongside the Off Yer Head and Herbal High drug stalls offering blue Mexican mushrooms and “legal speed and ecstasy”.

The Dirty Knickers brand proved popular with men and women looking for risqué lingerie while people queued at one stall to buy dog collars for their pets – and their lovers.

Revellers cooled off with drinks from six bars in the park and then waited in queues stretching 50m to use the portable toilets.

Among the most popular attractions were the Wild Fruit big top and the women’s tent, which offered a diverse mix of entertainers, from a vampire queen and “dyke rockers” to folk, pop and country singers.

The Revenge cabaret big top, hosted by Lola Lasagne, featured an array of acts.

Meanwhile Father John Hyde and Bishop Elizabeth Stuart from the Open Episcopal Church conducted “weddings” in front of the crowds at the Man Around Commitment Ceremony tent.

The festivities were captured by several film crews.

These included a new docusoap about limousines featuring Brighton drag queen Dave Lynn, an episode of Sky One’s Mile High, a pilot for a new gay travel show and ITV1’s Trisha programme.

Rumours were rife that Big Brother winner Nadia Almada was at the event but it seemed many had mistaken her for 40-year-old Alan Beasant, one of several partygoers who dressed as the popular “Portugeezer”.

Speaking with an unconvincing Mediterranean accent, he said: “I must be getting something right. Loads of people have come up to me thinking it’s actually Nadia. But I think I’m a bit too effeminate.”

It was also a day of sporting prowess featuring five a side football and the less conventional sport of handbag-throwing.

Hove Women’s Rugby Club narrowly lost to the England women’s team, who had drafted into the centre the event’s compere, drag queen Anastasia.

Although the game was supposed to be non contact, it turned into quite a physical affair with Hove’s women saving their toughest tackle for a female streaker who invaded the pitch just before the end.

Anastasia said afterwards: “I can’t believe it. I’ve got all these grass stains and I never normally get grass stains in daylight hours.”

In another first for the festival, the police officers who led the parade were allowed to march in uniform.

Previously off-duty officers had always been asked to wear civilian clothing but Sussex Police Deputy Chief Constable Joe Edwards said the rule had been relaxed for all events attended by the Gay Police Association.

Claire Streeter, 21, who had travelled from Poole in Dorset with girlfriend Becky, said: “The police have been absolutely fantastic and have really got into the spirit of things.”

Brighton’s first Gay Pride march, in July 1973, followed the riots in the Stonewall Bar on Christopher Street in Greenwich Village, New York, after a series of police raids in the city.

A handful of the town’s gay population took to the streets then to wave banners condemning police brutality and angrily chanted anti Government slogans. Despite the crowds being up to 1,000 times larger in Brighton it was fairly clear Pride was now almost entirely apolitical.

There were no angry defences of gay rights over loudspeakers and no rallies.

The people handing out leaflets wanted to educate festival-goers about gay wrestling and the latest club nights rather than politics.

Only two banners in the whole parade conveyed a political message: “Same old Tories. Same old Howard. Same old homophobia.”

The sole polemicist was an activist from George Galloway’s Leftwing Respect Party chanting to a largely oblivious crowd: “Close down Guantanamo Bay.”

This event was simply a celebration of sexuality – a riot of colour and sound, leopard print, cowboy hats, feather boas, bunny ears, moustachioed bodybuilders in tight shorts, pantomime dames and sailors, Wonderwoman and Abba.

Jim Radlin, 41, from Peacehaven, said: “I’m meeting friends from London who have come down on special train services. In the past they have been abused and even spat at but I think hopefully people are more enlightened these days. But Brighton is still light years ahead of the rest of the country when it comes to tolerance. The great thing about Brighton is that you can hold hands with your partner in the street and even give him a kiss without feeling like some kind of pervert.”

Pride in Brighton and Hove 2004 chairman David Harvey said: “The lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community is an integral part of life in the city and that is recognised all over the country.

“Pride is the envy of other cities because it’s a community event. We don’t charge and we raise money for local organisations.”

As the sun went down, casting long shadows across Preston Park and silhouetting the frazzled groups who were enjoying some down time after drinking and dancing all day, thousands of people began the procession to bars and clubs across the city to party the night away. The revelry continued when people crowded into St James’s Street in Kemp Town. Cabaret performers strutted their stuff on a stage while refreshments were provided at The Bulldog, the St James Tavern, The Harlequin, the Queens Arms and the old Candy Bar.