A man who paid almost £25 for a VIP ticket for Durham’s pride event says he was left bitterly disappointed with the “chaotic” event.

The man, who does not wish to be named, has been visiting pride for the last five years and paid £24.84 each for a VIP ticket for him and around 12 friends to visit the event.

But he says the organisation in the VIP section was “chaotic” with security misplacing VIP wristbands and long queues up to an hour to buy a drink at the bar.

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He said: “There was a lot of people in there without wristbands jumping over the fence and getting past security.

“They couldn’t find all the wristbands so some people who had paid for VIP couldn’t get in and others were just going wherever they liked.

“The queues at the bar were crazy – some people were spending about 45 minutes to an hour waiting to be served.

“It was just total chaos. I’ve gone to Durham Pride for the last five years and it puts us off from going again next year.”

The Northern Echo: Durham PrideDurham Pride (Image: Picture: SARAH CALDECOTT)

Many gathered in Durham City on Sunday (May 28) to take part in the annual Durham Pride event celebrating inclusion and diversity.

As part of the celebrations, the festival saw performances from Girls Aloud’s Nadine Coyle, Tess Tickle and the Dragettes, Jaymi Hensley, Karen Parry, Northern Proud Voices and many more.

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Organisers insisted the event went smoothly, despite some issues with the Wifi connection to card machines causing delays at the bar.

Mel Metcalf, chair of Durham Pride, said: “These comments do not reflect our experience yesterday.

“We hire services to support the day. The bar had four service points and we had two volunteers and four paid staff from 11.30am till close.  The issue with queues was our card readers went down and Wifi stopped working for some periods of time.

“We continued taking cash payments and cards when working. This was out of our control but we apologise for inconvenience caused as we did on the day.

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“The parade was the biggest yet and people with etickets produced this as entry to VIP. We had a private security company who manage the entrance and the VIP and any issues were dealt with immediately. As any event people will try and enter VIP and from feedback from others we believe this was managed.

“As volunteers managing Pride we learn every year and proud to be the largest equality diverse and inclusive event in Durham. We always value feedback and always welcome new volunteers as Pride is a charity run event.

“These are the facts as we understand them and we will not be offering refunds.”