As the sun set on Manchester Pride this year, and another Pride season drew to a close, it was time to reflect on our UK Pride Floats 2024 journey and the huge strides we made as a business. We had once again been the producer of the most floats at Pride in London and created more floats this year at events in Birmingham and Manchester. We also produced floats for Glasgow, Brighton and Leeds Pride events, making this our busiest Pride season ever.
Our Pride season opened with a bang at Birmingham Pride parade, where we were once again blessed with a sunny day. After being so pleased with their float last year, Cadbury came back to us again. 2024 is the business’ 200 year anniversary and they needed their float to be perfect on such a big occasion.
This year’s creation saw the distinctive purple of the chocolatier’s brand adorning their float, elevated with additional overhead signage and a full cab wrap to really bring the concept together. Once again, it looked amazing.
Another returning client from 2023 was Lidl, who asked us to support them at both Birmingham and London Pride this year. We worked to create an eye-catching, sparkly, vintage bus with room enough for over 60 members of the Lidl team to participate at both events.
Stonegate was a first time client at Birmingham Pride and really jumped in with both feet, taking our LED Hospitality bus. As the staff from familiar brands such as Slug & Lettuce and Popworld partied on the top deck, the fully wrapped and branded vehicle drove through the Birmingham streets, displaying video footage of their venues and showcasing their brand.
Pride in London is always the biggest and busiest event in our Pride calendar and this year was no exception. Our on-site team totaled over 60 people, including our event crew, prop makers, AV technicians, balloon artists, drivers and even the MD! With equal numbers of both returning and new clients, we had our work cut out.
SKY pulled out all of the stops and with their fantastic creative team, we produced a show-stopping Hospitality bus with a distinctive sparkle, rainbow design, giant custom-made letters. flags and LED screens showing Sky’s content throughout the parade. Their DJ blasted tunes from the back of the bus and really added to the party atmosphere.
In addition to London, Sky took their ‘float’ to Brighton Pride, Glasgow Pride and Leeds Pride parades, allowing their colleagues across the country to join in the Pride celebrations.
We were pleased to welcome back Chelsea FC and Heathrow airport for another season, who, along with new clients, Hilton, Just Eat and London Metropolitan University all opted for our ‘Low Rider Floats’. These are our longest floats, permitting clients the room to host both a DJ, as well as up to 60 participants. Hilton’s float was certainly eye-catching, with a glitter rainbow, balloons, flags and dancers making it quite a show-stopper.
A surprise guest on the Hilton float was the legendary DJ Jaxx Jones, who did a fantastic job of entertaining the crowds along the busy parade route. Opting to have LED screens on their float, Chelsea displayed some great content and Just Eat’s distinctive orange branding was certainly eye catching. London Met’s elaborate float, adorned with disco ball balloons and mirrored vinyl really brought their concept of ‘Reflecting the real London’ to life.
Cisco returned to The Clear Idea to produce their float for Pride in London, for the third consecutive year. The design of this year’s float was stunning. Using our trailer float, pulled by a fully wrapped electric car (a space age looking Tesla Model X), their design team created a vibrant AI concept that displayed their distinctive Cisco brand in a sophisticated, yet fun way.
We were delighted to be asked to produce the float and provide the sound system, for Gaydio, the official radio station of Pride. In addition to new clients IHG and The Independent, who successfully dipped their toes into the float arena with our fun Compact Power Floats, we were also pleased to welcome back clients such as the Mayor of London, MSD, Chelsea & Westminster NHS trust, West London NHS, Once Upon A Time agency and King, with their fun Candy Crush float.
Manchester Pride brought our season to an end and we were delighted to work with Tui and Starbucks again. First prize for the ‘Most fun on a float’ award must go to Tui, who welcomed Hi-De-Hi’s Su Pollard aboard their desert island themed trailer float. The Bay Watch, swimming suit clad, drag queens danced their hearts out to the DJ’s pumping playlist and the whole Tui team looked to be having the times of their lives.
A new client for us in Manchester this year, was University of Manchester, who allowed us to help them create a fabulous float to celebrate their 200th birthday year! Taking this year’s theme of ‘Buzzin’ to be Queer’ as inspiration, their float was decorated with a beautiful, multi-coloured flower design which they also displayed as content on the float’s LED screens.
All in all it was a hectic, yet wonderful Pride season. The Clear Idea Team worked tirelessly all Summer, creating show-stopping floats for our clients and transporting them to Pride events across the length and breadth of the country, from Brighton in the south to Glasgow in the north.
As the world continues to embrace diversity and inclusion, Pride events have become vibrant celebrations of love, identity, and community. In 2024, producing a float for a Pride parade not only requires technical skill and creativity, but also a deep understanding of the cultural significance behind the celebration. We truly believe that the vehicles The Clear Idea has created this year are some of our most innovative and creative floats to date and we hope we have helped our clients capture the true spirit and essence of LGBTQ+ pride.
Looking for more float design inspirations? Check out our pride parade floats roundup from 2023 and 2022.