Someone with loadsa money PLEASE open a gay bar in Sheffield!!

For a city the size of Sheffield the options to go out and get sloshed with your mates in a DECENT gay venue at the weekend is pretty crap!

OK weve got a few fairly mixed bars the Forum, Lounge, Takapuna, Halcyon, etc.. but their just not the same, there're really not!

Only decent gay event/venue we have in Sheffield is Climax, which sadly comes along only once a month

VIP & Moist whilst these are ok both on weekday nights aren't ideal if you week full time during the week.

So for a Saturday night out then if your gay/lesbian and want to go and feel secure and relaxed in a gay bar/club, without being made to feel uncomfortable and ridiculed by straight people, you only really have a choice of just Dempseys (chip pan chav joint at the bottom of the moor, lovely area of town!) or the vile sordid drug-riddled Club Xs and the other dire bar down Attercliffe (another gross part of Sheffield)

Sheffield's gay community desperately needs a full time quality gay bar/club within an attractive area of the city centre. The gap in the market here for the pink pound is HUGE!

It would only take one decent city centre gay bar to open and others would surely soon follow in it's brave footsteps.

A few years ago Leeds only had a couple of grotty gaybars at Bridge end and then along came Queens Court, which attracted Fibre, which kick started their now bustling gay scene involving huge clubs like Speed Queen, Federation and Mission.

Same thing happened in Nottingham (way smaller than Sheffield), which now has a good quality cluster of bars and a gay superclub NG1 to cater for its gay community.

Not even going to mention Manchester's gay scene which is in a league of it's own!

The contrast when you go out on the scene in Leeds and Nottingham to Sheffield hits you like a ton of bricks, it is so depressing when you think of the option's we have for a fab gay night out in Sheffield compared to them.

Why is the scene in Sheffield so poor, many will blame the council and local authorities, it is just one more indicator that Sheffield is just lagging so far far behind all the other major cities in the UK.

It makes me laugh when I read promotional material pumped out by the council and tourism boards describing Sheffield's nightlife as vibrant, diverse and cosmopolitan - WHAT A JOKE!

Guess I'll be down at Dempsey's then tomorrow night, one of my mates wants to go out on the scene in Sheffield and it's either there or Xs

Good rant Skyfitsboy. Am not gay, but still totally agree with you. The nightlife in Sheffield is laughably poor for such a large city, whichever team you bat for!

Why can't Mission, Fibre, Speed Queen, Poptastic (or other Super Gay Club) try to do a regular night here?

I like all the signed photos in Dempseys.

Every famous person imaginable seems to be a fan........

Are there any other alternative gay nights in Sheffield??

We had a gay pub, in the middle of town, The Cossack, that was eventually run into the ground by gay owners trying to make it into more of a "gay bar".

There was a time (not so long ago) when there was a full time gay club, and several pubs/bars. They all closed down due to lack of customers, if it was feasable to run a gay bar in Sheffield I think someone would, bussiness is bussiness at the end of the day.

Originally posted by nick2

We had a gay pub, in the middle of town, The Cossack, that was eventually run into the ground by gay owners trying to make it into more of a "gay bar".

 

There was a time (not so long ago) when there was a full time gay club, and several pubs/bars. They all closed down due to lack of customers, if it was feasable to run a gay bar in Sheffield I think someone would, bussiness is bussiness at the end of the day.

Erm, yeah but did you see the state of these places, people stopped going because they was SH*T not because of the lack of market.

That is the biggest problem with gay bars/clubs in Sheffield, they all open with the cheapest nastiest venue they can find, often within the least most accessible parts of the city and make no effort whatsoever to provide the gay community with a classy quality venue that it deserves.

All we’ve seen so far is sleazy bars open, run by people who are only interested in putting as little money and effort into getting a gay pub/club up and running in the hope of cashing in on the pink pound potential in Sheffield.

The Cossack was basically just a garage extension, with council house carpet thrown down, cheap Wilko lights on the walls and furniture which looked second hand from a working men’s club.

Then these place's wonder why they end up closing down due to lack of custom.

The gay community here no longer has to drink and socialise in run-down, sleazy, underground style type places, hidden away from the rest of the public.

Sheffield's location is more or less in the centre of a Manchester, Leeds & Nottingham triangle, go to any of these cities gay venues and your guaranteed to see many Sheffield faces in there.

Climax has proven for years that there is an untapped market for the gay scene in Sheffield, because the venue is great and the organisers have a genuine interest in providing us with something no one else is offering in Sheffield.

Not quite sure why but Dempsey’s defies all this and also remains packed at the weekends, too packed at times.

If the refurb of the new pool room in Dempsey’s is anything to go by I shudder to think what the landlords of Dempsey’s homes must be like. Only they could decorate and actually make it look worse than it did before, lol!

What I liked about the Cossack was that it was a "mostly gay" pub it wasn't just gay, most of my mates are straight and were perfectly happy to go for a pint in the Cossack because it was just a pub that happened to have loads of gay customers it wasn't a "gay bar" as such.

I realise some people like to go to gay only pubs but it just feels a bit like the black/white segregation they used to have in America to me. It's nice to go the pubs/clubs in Manchester every now and again, but I wouldn't want to go to them every night, all the bitching and cruising etc. gets a bit tedious after a while.

If I had the money I woudl open something like VIP, but I would not make it exclusively gay.

Yes, talking of the mixed bars I was curious to note that the main attraction at Cha Chas bar on a Friday night is a DJ in drag!

To think that, quite a few years ago now, one of the reasons that I chose to live in Sheffield (as opposed to Nottingham) was the gay scene. Where has it all gone?

Well, one of the reasons was the two guys from Leicester who took over the club in Attercliffe, and then opened a few bars in the same area. Trouble was, rather than co-operate with other gay venues in Sheffield, which would have provided choice and an interesting varied gay scene, competition broke out, and it became very cut throat.

The Albert was bulldozed to make way for the new road

system. The Cossack - one of the oldest gay bars in England - seemed to lose its way after a refurbishment, and lost customers in droves, before finally closing. Inbetween, Manchester exported a fantastically successful gay night to the City Hall, and the old Attercliffe club simply could not compete. The club owners shut up shop, sold out (now the Dancing Dollar - a straight venue) and their string of pubs closed with them.

Lastly, the success of London's Soho, Manchester's gay village (especially after Queer as Folk was screened on the telly) and Birmingham's gay village demonstrated that whilst gays still wanted their own territory (to drink, socialise and cruise), they no longer wanted to be hidden away in some industrial desert like Sheffield's Attercliffe. These successful gay scenes thrive because the bar and club owners co-operate, and provide niche venues and gay-community events, which pulls in the punters.

I've never been to Dempseys. It looks so unappealing from the outside - with those horrible, shuttered windows! I understand there is a door charge - and I object in principle to paying a poll tax to drink in a bar just because I am gay.

So, I mainly drink in straight venues in Sheffield, apart from attending a gay social group which meets at Xes (and, frankly, what a dire name that is!). When I fancy a night on the gay scene, I drive over to Manchester, or periodically stay over with friends in London. Luckily, the friends are moving to Brighton soon - so I'm looking forward to visiting another successful gay scene, down south.

Sheffield's gay scene? Non existent. Sadly, with Leeds, Manchester and Nottingham all within a hours drive - these are the cities where it is all happening now (and, unbelievably, even Hull has a thriving gay scene!). I can't see any investor staking their money in providing Sheffield with a decent venue. More's the pity though.

Blimey, you must be as ancient as me if you remember The Albert (and it's illegal imigrant strippers on Sunday night)

Originally posted by nick2

I realise some people like to go to gay only pubs but it just feels a bit like the black/white segregation they used to have in America to me. It's nice to go the pubs/clubs in Manchester every now and again, but I wouldn't want to go to them every night, all the bitching and cruising etc. gets a bit tedious after a while.

I knew this thread would attract a comment like this.

In an ideal world everyone could quite happily all socialise in the same bar, but in reality it doesnt work and it's not what everyone wants.

No way would I feel comfortable kissing my boyfriend in any of the so-called mixed bars in Sheffield. The Forum used to run a mixed night called Polysexual aimed at a gay/str8/anything goes market and I witnessed first hand how intolerent it actually was and ended the night ended up being ditched.

It's all about having a choice to go to a decent exclusively gay bar in your home city, a place where homophobic atittudes aren't tolerated, where you can just relax and be yourself without being insulted, ridiculed and threatened by ignorant tw*t's.

This black/white segregation comparison doesn't seem valid to me. We have rock bars, 80s & 70s bars, Lap Dancing clubs, House, Garage, drum & bass clubs, etc.. so is this segregation too?

Do we not deserve a choice where we want to go and get sloshed and spend our hard earned money?!