By Megan Oberholzer, Fourth Year, Liberal Arts
When it comes to queer culture in Bristol, if you’re just going to OMG’s Big Gay Night Out every Saturday, you’re doing it wrong. The Bristol queer scene has so much more to offer!
While the big names in the queer Bristol nightlife, like Frogmore Street and the Old Market village, feel as though they have been around forever - and don’t seem to be going away any time soon - the landscape of LGBTQ+ spaces has seen massive changes in the last five years. Since the last lockdown lifted in 2021, the local community has experienced a renaissance of queer collectives that go hand in hand with alternative performance shows and underground music movements. Furthermore, recent social shifts like the Equality Act ruling and ongoing increased political scrutiny has seen Bristol’s queer community double down on its connections and drive new inclusive movements.
Naturally, the gay clubs and pubs closest to the heart of the University of Bristol remain strong. The OMG bar reopened this year in April after major renovations that included new décor, a new dance floor and a new DJ booth. Poundemonium Student nights still run weekly on Wednesdays and Thursdays. OMG’s neighbour, the Queenshilling, won the Shout Out Awards 2025 and now boasts #BestQueerSpace on its website, where you’ll find a selection of karaoke and music nights.
But if you’re looking for something a little further out, Old Market has multitudes on offer. From the Old Market Tavern, Old Castle Green and the Bristol Bear Bar, to other nearby staples like the Phoenix, the Old Market Assembly, and The Jam Jar, you won’t be left wanting for a place to go.
But is Bristol’s LGBTQ+ community limited to just pubs and clubs? Well, not exactly. . .
Underground Collectives
This year CONQUEER, a queer-centered music and art platform, launched its archival book OUR SCENE in February 2025 detailing an unexpected ‘big gay boom’ immediately after lockdown in Bristol.
‘We saw around 6 new [queer grassroots] collectives formed in 2021, roughly 7 in 2022, then only 2 established from early 2023. Whereas if we look backwards pre-lockdown, we estimate around 1-3 collectives were formed per year dating back to 2010.’
CONQUEER is one of these post-lockdown collectives, and often collaborates with others, like the music collective Inklingroom. Their events often land at Strange Brew, an independent Bristol live music venue, bar, and exhibition space that opened in 2020, and mix immersive performance-artists and visual art with Bristol’s nightlife and rave scene.
A close friend of CONQUEER is People Like Us (PLU), a queer DJ collective that is celebrating its 14th Birthday with Gag Reflex & Kundai on 14th February at Loco Klub in Old City.
FAGBUTT also sits in the same family. It is an alternative punk cabaret and club night event runner and the home of ‘secret pride’, the free pride event with a new secret location every year that grew from a wide-spread rejection of mainstream pride, deemed as too corporate and too far removed from its revolutionary, community-led roots. FAGBUTT hosts events that blur the lines between the camp, the grotesque, and the glamorous, such as their out-of-this-world (literally) Cosmic Creatures Halloween show and their upcoming BAD FRIDAY event at Loco Klub in April.
The number of queer collectives, event runners, and underground groups in Bristol are beyond counting, but here are some additional honourable mentions: Fuze, Wronguns, Draggernauts, Queerky, and Transgression.fm.
Inclusive Community Networks
Pride has always been about activism and revolution; however, big stand-out parties are not the only tool in the box when it comes to cultural revolution.
Bristol Gay Men’s Chorus was featured in December 2025 by BBC news as an example of an everyday act of resistance, where visibility is not ‘brave’ as it has been seen in the past, but the cultural default. They exemplify how queer art communities in Bristol are their own form of activism. And this is not limited to choirs. Queer Space Bristol has its own Queer Stage and a Queer Reads monthly book club hosted at the Watershed. Bristol Queer Pottery hosts its own social pottery classes aimed at bringing queer folks together.
Bristol has also seen new designated spaces pop up in 2025 for queer women, such as Sapphic Sundays, who get together for anything from Yoga, to art exhibitions, to bring your own project sessions - which they emphasise are not dating events but also not not dating events. The best way to book with them is HEADFIRST Bristol.
In the same vein, Bristol’s Indigo Network creates a space for queer women that is actively advertised as trans inclusive. They host a monthly speed meet at the Architect, with optional social drinks afterwards.
Since the controversial Supreme Court ruling that effectively asserted that trans women are not legally recognised as women under the Equality Rights Act last April, many queer spaces and initiatives in Bristol have added trans flags into their bios, posts, and descriptions and doubled down on their support. And from this redoubling, a new no-boys-allowed trans-inclusive space has opened up called Soft Butch. This is a club night, also hosted at Strange Brew, that combines elements of meditation, reggaeton, Afrobeat, dancehall, and drum and bass to celebrate butchness, whether you are cis, trans, or non-binary.
Theo Kent
Melissa Braine
More Out There…
Although I have tried here to provide you with as many unique queer spaces as possible, CONQUEER’s book OUR SCENE highlights the importance of documenting queer spaces, especially as they become more and more diversified in purpose, scope and location. So, if you’re still looking for more, I have one last recommendation for you - the Bristol Queer Directory.
Run by Queer Radiance and maintained by two self-described volunteer disabled queers, the Bristol Queer Directory documents over 100 queer spaces, collectives and initiatives from intersectional spaces, like the Black Trans Hub, to queer cinemas and workout groups. There is something for everyone in the queer community. And if there’s somewhere or someone you know that really should have made the list by now, you can even recommend an entry!
Featured Image: Epigram / Eliza Deniz
How else can you support Bristol's queer community?
