Essex lesbian looking for LGBTQ+ friends finds love after organising ‘Big Queer Picnics’ with viral TikTok post

An Essex-born lesbian who put out a call for more LGBTQ+ friends on TikTok and ended up hosting hundreds at her first park picnic has also found love through her “Big Queer Picnic” events.

After a 2022 break-up left Abi Smith, 33, from Colchester, keenly aware of her lack of LGBTQ+ friends, she posted a TikTok asking other queer people if they wanted to meet her in Hyde Park in London for a picnic.

She expected five to 10 people to show up with sandwiches and suncream, but instead, the video went viral overnight and hundreds of people showed up.

Following that first picnic, Abi now runs multiple events a year under the “Big Queer Picnic” brand – including ticketed after parties, speed friend-dating nights and Carabiner club nights – all arranged alongside her day job as a freelance social media manager and access support worker.

After struggling with loneliness, Abi has found love and made an extensive friendship group through Big Queer Picnic events – while helping hundreds of other LGBTQ+ people to do the same.

“I walked into Hyde Park with a little picnic blanket and a Pride flag, and then it was like the hordes descended,” Abi told PA Real Life.

“There were hundreds and hundreds of people. It was honestly like that bit in Mad Max where they come over the horizon.”

Abi now hosts three Big Queer Picnic events a year in April, June and August, with an accessibility co-ordinator helping to identify locations that have step-free access, and find after-party venues that have social spaces for people who do not drink to feel like they can hang out and chat without needing alcohol.

The picnics are currently held in London, but Abi has ambitions of expanding the event to Brighton this year, and other cities including Manchester and Dublin in the future.

It is important to Abi that transgender women feel welcome at her events, and she enjoys being part of attendees’ transition journeys – with many trans women using the picnics as the first occasion where they feel safe to dress as themselves for the first time.

“I get to see people in two months’ time, or in a year’s time, when they’ve got this giant group of friends, and they’re completely living as themselves. Their light’s suddenly returned to their eyes,” said Abi.

While the events have been positively life-changing for those who attend, it is not always easy to be at the helm of such an inclusive community. Abi says her commitment to trans inclusivity has made her a target for online abuse.

She said: “People send me horrible voice notes – but of course I’d much rather they waste their energy on me than my trans friends.

“One guy was messaging me daily saying he was going to find me with a gun and a Molotov cocktail, it’s bizarre.”

Abi has not gone to the police as she does not think they would be of any help unless there was a credible threat to her safety.

She believes the April 2025 UK Supreme Court ruling that in the Equality Act, the terms “woman” and “sex” refer exclusively to a biological woman and biological sex, thereby excluding transgender women (even those with Gender Recognition Certificates) from the legal definition of “woman” was “heinous bullshit”.

“They’re trying to strip away the most basic human rights from people I love,” she said.

“I wish I could wrap a big protective bubble around all my sweet little queer buddies.”

Her original TikTok explained that she was feeling lonely, wanted more queer friends, and said she would be sitting on a picnic blanket in Hyde Park on 23 April 2022, if anyone wanted to come along and “be her pal”.

Abi was overwhelmed when she saw how many people showed up to express queer solidarity and was inspired to formalise the event as the Big Queer Picnic.

Through hosting these events, Abi has helped thousands of LGBTQ+ people make friends – and, in some cases, attendees have found more than that.

“I get messages all the time – people saying, ‘I met my girlfriend at your picnic’, or even, ‘We got engaged.’ I’ve had five engagements so far,” she said.

Abi met her own partner, Iona, at one of her club nights.

“They came on their own to Carabiner, and I was running around like a headless chicken,” she said.

“We kept catching each other’s eye, and at the end of the night they came over and said, ‘Give me your phone.’ They saved their number in it as ‘Iona the hot masc’. That was it.”

“This community gave me everything I didn’t know I needed,” Abi added.