Pride Comic Art Festival is (we believe) the only UK comic art festival that is dedicated to LGBTQIA+ creators. 2023 marks our third physical year of running the festival.

History

The founders (Nate and Chris) love comics, especially independent comics. Indie comics are a great resource for an individual or group to share their art, interests, passions, and stories with the world without the limitations, red tape and sometimes censorship of a publishing company. It's no surprise that the LGBTQIA+ community often go hand in hand with indie comics. Underground zines were created in the 70's and 80's to spread sexual health and HIV/Aids information when Governments were happy to ignore or demonise the community. Fan-created comics and fiction would depict romantic same-sex relationships when the representation wasn't there in mainstream media. Even now as queer stories finally get some sort of representation there is a vocal bigoted culture screaming "Woke gone mad".   

As people who identify under the LBTQIA+ umbrella, we both wanted to create dedicated spaces, provide a platform and celebrate queer comic creators. To showcase their work in a safe and supportive environment at an affordable price.  

With little to no indie comic events happening but a large LGBTQIA+ community, it was decided to hold the first event in Bristol. The first festival was planned to go ahead in 2020 but then COVID hit. We held off running a physical event until it was safer to do so in 2021.  Tentatively, PrideCAF opened for the first time to the general public in September 2021 and there was an overwhelming amount of love and support from exhibitors and visitors. In 2022, we formed a not-for-profit company (called Rough Sketch Productions LTD) and opened our doors again expanding our floor space to house ~45 creators with ~350 people attending the day itself. Taking on feedback from all who make the event possible, we want to continue working on making Pride Comic Art Festival bigger, better and more accessible for everyone. 

One of the most important accessibilities we always want to uphold is that the event is free to attend and affordable for exhibitors. This is where Crowdfundr comes in.

Why Crowdfundr Now?

Fees have gone up a lot in 2023. Our chosen venue has had to make changes to its fees which takes a lot from our budget. The venue is also a charity and we want to continue to support more green roots organisations compared to moving to a corporate ran event space. So far in 2023, we have been busy trying to get funding but have been unsuccessful including a recent rejected application from the Arts Council.

We saw in 2022 where we could have provided a better service and more information and we need help in funding those improvements. We plan to use the raise money for the following:- 

Accessibility Improvements 

These improvements include a large print programme to inform visitors who is at the festival, where and when talks take place, recorded versions of the talks to go up on a video platform and where to find more information. We'd also like to hire a BSL interpreter for our live talks.  

Printing

As well as printing the programme we're hiring a freelance artist in the community to help us put it together. Costs will also go towards printing promotional materials like posters and flyers.

Event Costs

While our table applicants cover most of the venue costs, we require additional funds to cover the rising fees. This will also cover equipment hire, refreshments for exhibitors and a photographer. 

Yearly Runnings

Our organisation is not-for-profit, which means all money we make goes towards our events or benefits to the community. However, we have yearly costs to continue to provide evidence our work is 100% community-based. This includes a business accountant and event insurance. 

If we were to reach our crowd funder goal, the pie graph below illustrates what percentage of funds will go towards each category.

We really appreciate any contribution and we do have some physical rewards you can reserve. We know, it's not the best to start a crowdfunding campaign without images of the physical rewards but we still have a couple of tweaks to make sure they are worth it as a reward. Please take a look and we appreciate whatever you can give.

We understand not everyone can financially support us but if you have ideas on other ways to support us we'd love to hear from you. Please contact us at hello@pridecaf.co.uk