Two widely popular monthly queer nightclub events were booted from their longtime home this month and people are pissed, accusing the club's current and soon-to-be new owners of homophobia and disrespect.
The promoters of the Blow Pony and Bearracuda events were called into a meeting not long before the Pride events were to kick off earlier this month and were told by Euphoria's current owner, Mike Wolfson, that the person in the process of becoming a partner in the club, Paul Song of Red Cube, no longer wants queer events there on the weekend (edit: It was just Blow Pony's Airick Redwolf at that meeting, Bearracuda folks found out shortly after). Instead, as Wolfson relayed to them at the meeting and as he and Song relayed to the Mercury today, the club will focus just on electronic dance music. The Blow Pony and Bearracuda events during Pride were the last queer events there, at least for the foreseeable future.
Both of the events had been at that space for most of the last decade. Bearracuda was held on one Friday night per month, Blow Pony on that Saturday. Each had DJs and and brought in musicians, packing the club's two floors with excited revelers in one of Portland's most iconic queer scenes. They're now looking for new venues to move to.
"It drew between 300 and 600 people every time," said Nikki Lev, a Blow Pony go-go dancer. "We packed the place every month."
Much of animosity of the events' organizers and ardent supporters stems from a meeting where the promotors were told continuing to hold queer events at Euphoria would "confuse" the regular EDM show attendees.
"I was at that meeting and was told that to my face," said Airick Redwolf, who started Blow Pony nine years ago. "We were brought in for a meeting on the Friday prior to Pride. He said we were allowed to do our final event on [June] 18th, but we would no longer be able to do any events after that. It was a little bit alarming that we were being removed, and he said that the new owners didn't want us there. I asked what was the reason, and he said they didn't want queer events there in the fear that it would confuse their regular attendees."
When word of this meeting got out, passionate event supporters took to social media to spread their displeasure with the move. They wrote negative comments on Euphoria's Facebook page, and told of a boycott of Euphoria's fundraiser this Friday night for the victims of the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack in Orlando, where they'd be donating the cover charge (update: the Euphoria fundraiser was cancelled shortly after this post was published). Many viewed the fundraiser as a simple ersatz attempt to gain favor with the LGBTQ community despite shutting down the queer events (Nikki Lev and a number of Blow Pony/Bearracuda supporters encourage folks to attend a fundraiser Saturday night at Holocene instead).
Matt Consola, a promoter and DJ for Bearracuda, says "to tell us a new club owner is coming in and taking over your night, and they don't want queer events any longer in the largest queer space in Portland, and one of the oldest queer spaces in Portland, that was just a kick in the gut. The two things that really upset us was, one, saying that queer events were no longer welcome, but then to turn around throw a benefit for Orlando, that was the final slap in the face that got us saying this was bullshit."
He explained life in the nightclub industry is tough, and it would be understandable for new club owners to change types of events, but booting queer events so as not to "confuse" an intended new demographic is terrible.
Wolfson admits he told Redwolf that Song didn't want queer events on the weekends in the future because it could confuse EDM event goers, but blames the anger on social media on a miscommunication.
"I think people are really heavily misconstruing it," Wolfson said. About the meeting with Redwolf, he said, "I said essentially what I heard from the new ownership, which is they want to want to have a consistency of programming, and they don't want to confuse their customers. I think people have taken that language and said this means that Red Cube is homophobic and they're worried about gay people being here, and my take on it is it's not accurate... Airick had asked me if I think there'd be any more queer events in the future, and I said, verbatim, 'I doubt it.' He also could have asked me if there will be any black metal events there because we did lots of those, and I would have said 'I doubt it.' That's not what Paul does."
That's Paul Song's perspective, too. He tells the Mercury he can sell one thing and one thing only: EDM.
"We don't want to have those (queer events) because we want to be consistent with EDM events on the weekends," Song said. "I'm not homophobic and we're not saying those guys need to go away because they're queer events. We just want to keep it consistent."
Redwolf is resentful about this because of all the money Blow Pony events have made the venue throughout the years.
"We've been making them loads of money," he said. "I would go as far as saying that if it wasn't for our event in that space, for all the changes and mishaps over the years, our events kept that space alive."
Derek Archer, a fire dancer and hooper at Blow Pony, said in an email to the Mercury he's upset about "not having a safe space as a dancer and in recent light of the Orlando massacre, my queer dancer friends and I have nowhere to express ourselves."
Redwolf echoes this sentiment:
”For a lot of us who are queer, clubs are our church, our sanctuary, it’s where we go to celebrate each other and at one time in our life feel at peace and relaxed," he said. "That’s why the whole thing that happened in Orlando hit home for so many of us, because of spaces like Blow Pony, this is the only place we get to go for a lot of us, where we feel accepted, like we’re apart of a community and family, and don’t have to feel like somebody will whack us over the head with a bat or shoot us."
Blow Pony and Bearracuda promoters are now looking for new venues to keep the event going.
If you have anything to say about what's going on with Blow Pony, Bearracuda, and Euphoria Nightclub, please feel free to email me at doug@portlandmercury.com. I plan on reporting on this further and would be more than happy to listen to what you have to say.
