Manchester's Gay Village 'as vibrant as ever' but bars need to 'up their game to survive'
Manchester's Gay Village 'as vibrant as ever' but bars need to 'up their game to survive'
For the first time since she moved to the city, Misty was invited to host a night in the Northern Quarter back in February.
She said: “The amount of gay customers has risen and many of them are choosing to take dates to the Northern Quarter.
“Perhaps it gives them a sense of being more ‘normal’ and therefore lends a seriousness to what they are hoping will be a new lasting relationship.”
Misty hosts ‘The Big Geek Quiz’ at Bar21 every Tuesday, but despite adding to her four Canal Street residencies with one outside of the village, she does not fear this will affect the community.
“Inevitably, the invisible elastic cord which attaches us all to Canal Street tightens with each drink consumed, and before long, they can be found bopping around G-A-Y,” she added.
This idea of an ‘invisible elastic cord’ towards Canal Street seems to be an important one – the area may be the heartbeat of the LGBT scene, but what’s to say the cord will not snap and cut the supply back to the street is cut off?
Iain Scott, who runs Canal Street online believes the future is still strong for the village and is clear on how they must battle the competition.
Iain, who is an instrumental figure around Canal Street, said: “Basically, venues in the village have got to continue to raise their game.
“A lot of this is cyclical, if you’ve been around for 20 years like I have, you see highs and lows and trends and phases but at the moment, it is coming out of one of those periods where perhaps things have been a little bit flat.
“There are hundreds of thousands, if not millions, being invested in over five locations. That says a lot to me.
“It says the vibrancy is still there. And that the best business is still there. And the people investing the money believe in the future in and around the village.”
One of the places Iain referring to is Taurus, which he founded 14 years ago, and is now being refurbished thanks to new investment, which in itself has changed in recent years.
While there was an influx of major breweries and multiple operators around 20 years ago, with a couple still operating, the ‘new money’ coming in is from independent operators.
And according to Iain, this provides freedom for decisions and allows for more influence, showing that ‘the people investing the money believe in the future in and around the village’.
It appears that the Canal Street community has long realised the bar must be raised if it is to continue playing the role of Manchester’s LGBT hub.
It is evidently striving not to be an area in decline, a word which was mentioned during MM’s interview with The Apprentice’s Sanjay Sood-Smith, and has since been elaborated on by Cheddar Gorgeous, a resident drag artist at Cha Cha Boudoir.
She said: “The word decline is really interesting. It suggests that there is some standard and the village has always been changing.
“Just prior to the public attention, the gay village was a red light district so it was full of gangsters, hookers and crime. Then the bright lights and the vibrancy came and it was pushed out there as this great tourist attraction.”
The public attention Canal Street received was predominantly down to the Queer as Folk documentary, which is now over 15 years old.
Times have certainly changed since then, but members of the LGBT community are adamant that the buzz surrounding the village will not die out.
And this is the attitude which will certainly keep Canal Street alive – the invisible elastic cord will never be cut so long as those close to the centre believe in its future.
Image courtesy of Tecmark, with thanks
Comments
The Vileage is a cesspit, and no amount of glitter rolling will conceal the turd that lies beneath.
Gay bars and clubs existed for two reasons: as places to meet and socialise with other LGBTQ people and as safe spaces in which to do that. Their importance as meeting places has been on the slide for at least quarter of a century. Gay and lesbian individuals and couples have been living openly in even the smallest villages for decades without a problem. And today we have many more options when it comes to socialising, making contact and meeting. In the early 1990s some of the gay businesses realised that 96% of the population - the non LGBTQ people - were an untapped market. So under the guise of "equality" they threw open the doors to all with devastating consequences. Longstanding bar owners knew very well what the consequences would be of inviting in large numbers of heterosexuals, but the money was too tempting. Back then there was rarely ever any trouble in gay bars and clubs. But regularly fights in many mainstream venues. Add in homophobia that emerges after a few beers. What could possibly go wrong?And now, having become accustomed to the threatening atmosphere, and with the mix of ages and moderate drinking having pretty much gone, many of the gay customers are just as rowdy and bad. The good behaviour and civilised atmosphere that we enjoyed until the early nineties has disappeared. So the two main reasons for going to gay bars and clubs have diminished considerably. Hence the decline. The Council also subsidised the village in the 1990s as a regeneration area and it's questionable whether it has ever been viable once that public handout ended. Via tickets, Manchester Pride is another £650,000 handout from the public to businesses that say they couldn't survive without it. Misty talks about us "all" being attached to Canal Street. That is far from the truth. There's a pool of a few hundred, maybe one thousand, LGBTQ people who go to the village regulary. This group represents perhaps 1% of all the LGBTQ people in the north-west. There are 2.55 million people in Greater Manchester. If 6% are lesbian, gay or bi that is 153,000 people. Then consider all the hetrosexuals and tourists who go to Canal Street. This shows you what a fraud the village is when it claims to represent the "gay community." In fact some people are coming to the conclusion that the gay village attracts mainly the extreme fringe of people. Many of whom have been unable to "move on" after coming out. Somehow they never "get over" it. Surveys of gay village and Manchester Pride goers (including a recent one done by the LGF called "Part of the Picture") show higher mental health, alcohol and drug problems than in the mainstream population. As made clear above, these findings don't represent the majority of LGBTQ people who don't go to the village or Pride. They only represent the extreme fringe who do go. Everyone has known what the problems of the gay village are for many years now. No one has been willing to do anything and they won't, because money is what they care about. It would mean reducing the number of takeaways and establishments that sell alcohol. A real village would have a newsagents, post office, bank, grocers, bookshop or library, other shops and a community centre or church hall where free non-profit events could happen. Villages do not consist almost entirely of takeaways and bars.So, carry on Canal Street. Unfortunately you're doomed but no doubt you'll continue swirling down the drain in decline and denial for quite a few more years yet.
The Village is not a great representation of the community as a whole - when bars such as G-A-Y start turning away people because they don’t look "gay enough" it shows that the village is for a certain type of gay person - where is the normal bars allowing people, regardless of image, trend, or sexuality, to chill have, fun without bumping into a drugged up crack head in the bogs? if you are a scene queen perfect place!!1 if you are a normal lad - you might not even get in!