Similarly, since 2003, people have been asking why does it cost £10-£15 to get into the gay village so we can ‘celebrate being gay’ during Manchester Pride, when we know that Pride brings £20m+ of business to the city, according to the City Council’s own figures.

Charging high prices and putting on mainly pay-events means that many people in the city end up being excluded. But, unfortunately nothing will change as long as enough people keep paying up.

I was talking with a Manchester-based author recently who tried to get his already-fully-financed production included in a Manchester arts event and they wouldn’t even list him. They prefer to fly in artists from New York etc. and that doesn’t benefit Manchester the rest of the year.

So we need more focus on encouraging local talent (and not past-it bands from 15 years ago).

If there was a large outdoor free stage then that’d be a different story, I don’t get why we’re paying for such overtly commercial enterprise.