It was a perfect venue. The grounds of Cherry Hinton Hall are broad and spacious, nonetheless offering little nooks of privacy. And the weather decided to wink laughingly at the Picnic, modulating cool clouds with warm bursts of sunshine. For a relatively small event, there was a nice variety of entertainment: various food stalls, both organic healthfoods and the usual candyfloss-chips and burgers variety, as well as a children’s corner where a throng of face-painted smiles and laughters were busy drawing, playing music or running around, pink clothes stalls, a fair ground area sporting the usual rides as well as an Alice-in-wonderland type inflatable cottage, and an impossible-to-climb ladder offering a lot of comic action and prize money no one could get. There were a few awareness-raising stalls supporting community projects about AIDS and homelessness.

The entertainment was spread out in three spaces: an open marquee called the Women’s Area where some very energetic people jigged to House and Disco all day, a tent for quieter acoustic performances and comedy, and a main stage where a myriad of music genres made the afternoon shake its booty, from Afro-Cuban to Soul and Funk, Heavy Rock to Samba, and a red and black camp cross-dressing cheerleading show from Bodyworks dance students.
A VIP area next to the main stage offered performers free food including pink salads, and the most lavish mobile loos you are likely to find at any concert!
Throughout the afternoon people were to-ing and fro-ing, and couples, families and friends relaxed, sitting on the grass, chatting, drinking and eating. It was a palpably chilled-out atmosphere, which showered you with good vibes, and though people were enjoying their tipples, there was never any tension or violence. Bursting forth every now and then were streams of the carnivalesque: a myriad of face-painted children, a 6-foot-tall muscular man in a glamorous pink tutu as well as other funky cross-dressers, dogs sporting VIP tags, also two of sci-fi stilt insects (and their damsels) all gleaming in copper and metallic blue, walking a slow and languorous crawl whilst performing sinuous acrobatics, weaving in and out of the crowd, and sometimes pausing to shake their antennas at mesmerised children…

Hopefully people will be able to gather again for another day next August, as it was a wonderful celebration of gay culture as well as openness and diversity.


www.pinkpicnic.co.uk
www.yougotspotted.com
www.arcoiris.org.uk


Many thanks to Stuart Swift for the pictures!