The long-running LGBTQ+ electronic dance party Blow Pony will saddle up for the last time on Saturday, March 28. Airick X—Blow Pony’s co-founder, who was known for several years as Airick Redwolf and Airick Heater—is retiring the party after uniting the queer community on the dance floor for 19 years, per a statement shared on the party’s social media platforms. X attributes the end of Blow Pony to financial constraints and personal exhaustion.
“The truth is, we’re not able to continue this event on a financial level and in some ways, a mental level,” the statement reads in part. “Sadly and in a celebratory way, it’s time to let this wild horse free, this month on our 19yr anniversary, will more than likely be our last dance with y’all! We may show up to do a one off here and there? But that’s a conversation for another time.”
When reached by phone Sunday, March 15, X confirmed that Blow Pony may possibly come back on an infrequent pop-up basis. He clarified that Blow Pony’s monthly schedule is ending due to new economic norms, such as rising airfare and hospitality costs for touring entertainers, as well as “room fees” which venues are increasingly charging event producers in lieu of splitting ticketing proceeds. He also clarified that the “mental level” the statement alluded to was the gradual toll of being an online public figure, citing “cancel culture” that has at times affected not just X and Blow Pony, but some of the entertainers booked for its stage. X characterized most of these instances as private disagreements aired on social media, saying no one instance is the cause of Blow Pony’s retirement. X cited an example where he was falsely accused of racial insensitivity at a party, as well as instances where his peers have taken issue with his tone.
“I’m exhausted with how we as queer people… treat each other, more than anything,” X tells Portland Mercury. “But I’m not exhausted by the event or things of that nature. It’s just the environment that we’re all dealing with, and the way some of us are choosing to treat each other is unfortunate…. I’m just exhausted with cancel culture, I’m exhausted with people not doing their research to find the truth, people causing real harm to innocent people who have done nothing.”
Blow Pony began in 2007 at the downtown Portland location of the Eagle—which was a different bar from the one of the same name operating on North Lombard Street—back when the city’s then-notorious Vaseline Alley was still populated by LGBTQ+ bars. X came to Portland originally from Colorado with years of experience booking punk bands and throwing unsanctioned raves. Blow Pony moved to the Central Eastside twin venues Branx and Rotture (now 45 East), where it attracted hundreds of partiers hungry for a vision of queer nightlife that expanded beyond the gay-lesbian binary that was dominant in the 2000s. X said he only agreed to do the party at The Eagle if women were allowed to attend—it was far more commonplace for gay bars across Portland to be gender-exclusive 20 years ago than it is today.
“Nightlife in general is changing, and I think all of us on this continent are facing the end of a loaded gun with what’s going on in the political climate,” X says. “There’s a lot of really intense things coming at our trans siblings and things in our communities of color that they’ve been dealing with longer than any of us, and it’s just getting worse, so there’s a lot of things contributing to the end of this, but 19 years is a massive success for any party to last that long, including nine moves.”
Along with platforming local and national talent—Christeene, viral drag artist Kelly, and rapper Dai Burger among recent headliners, not to mention a host of alumni from RuPaul’s Drag Race and The Boulet Brothers’ Dragula—Blow Pony charged Portland’s LGBTQ+ nightlife scene forward in a bold direction favoring radical inclusivity and expression. In the party’s early days, X and other Blow Pony personalities endured overt homophobia and transphobia that was still socially commonplace during George W. Bush’s lame duck period (Portland Mercury covered the trial of a man accused of a particularly violent homophobic attack outside Blow Pony in 2009). As queer nightlife expanded outside of gay bars during the mid-2010s, Blow Pony proved to be an invaluable blueprint for queer party hosts who felt stunted by the lack of opportunities available to them, and for well-intended venue owners who up to then had not worked with overtly queer audiences or entertainers.
“Coming from someone who’s been in nightlife in Berlin and London and across the United States and Canada: Portland’s queer nightlife is a special gem,” X says. “If we don’t figure out a way to figure out some of the shit that’s going on, we’re going to lose that, but Portland is a special place… Portland still has that DIY energy and it’s still a progressive city with so much talent. We need to protect that, keep it like it is, and further ourselves. We are paving a way, in a lot of ways, for places that don’t have a uniqueness that Portland has.”
After 45 East’s owners booted Blow Pony two weeks before LGBTQ+ Pride in 2016, X and crew landed at Bossanova Ballroom (now Nova PDX), but the party decamped over political differences with the venue’s then-ownership. X spoke up on Blow Pony’s online pages in support of the electronic dance duo DJ Anjali and the Incredible Kid when they were banned from the Den, where Blow Pony was held at the time, over an unplanned display of Palestinian solidarity on New Year’s Eve 2023. X clarified that while the Den’s co-owner Manoj Matthew complied with many of Blow Pony’s requests, they parted ways over professional differences by the end of 2024, decamping to White Owl Social Club before returning to Nova PDX.
Throughout the 2010s, Blow Pony threw pop-up parties around the country, infusing Portland’s brand of self-determined DIY queerness into more socially conservative parts of the United States. It also carried on the historically queer activist work of fusing parties with philanthropy, raising funds for charitable organizations and performers with medical or other significant bills. Blow Pony will return to Nova at the end of the month for one last blowout as we know it, bidding farewell with headliner Heidi N Closet and guest host Kornbread Jeté, both RPDR alum.
“We’ve learned and grown a lot over 19 years, but we also stayed true to our message, which is that we weren’t just a dance party,” X says. “We got out in the streets with our communities, and we pushed back. We were there for people when they needed it, when we could be, so we weren’t just a normal dance party where people got fucked off their faces and danced all night. We were providing a space where people could share their bodies. We were, and have been, creating a space that was all-inclusive for our trans and queer bodies, and for people of color to be seen on the stage where they weren’t normally seen on stages, particularly in Portland.”
The last Blow Pony goes off at Nova PDX, 722 E Burnside, Sat March 28, 9 pm, $18, more info, 21+