5 Reasons Why Your Gay Bar Failed

I'm originally from over sort of Guildford way and now reside in Reading and this year alone I’ve seen the end of a The Granby, The Malthouse and Scrumptious, leaving a lack of gay places for people to go. My theories as to what factors contributed to their demise are listed below:

1) Lack of hot male bar staff
One thing I noticed with a few places was a severe lack of hot bar men. Without dumping on the lesbians too much we did have a fair few lesbians with the exact same hair cut and 90% of them never ever smiled. We gays are a fickle breed and need half naked toned guys in black vests to make us want to come out on a Friday and Saturday night. It’s simple science.

Come on people, is it that hard to get right?

2) You didn't keep your personal and professional lives separate
There are a couple of bar owners / managers who took their personal vendettas into the work place and would ban people they didn’t like.
Now I totally understand that, but what you should take into consideration is that: A) Word of mouth is the most powerful form of marketing and B) You’re cutting your nose off to spite your face. You ban one person, their friends won’t come and you’re down a fair bit of money, let alone banning multiple people.

3) You didn't have a gimmick
From my experience not enough was done to differentiate each venue from the others and if it was, not enough to sing about it. If you have a lot of cabaret, tell people about it! If you focus more on a certain type of music, tell people about it!
Simply positioning yourself as a gay bar is fine, but if you have 3 others in the area, you need to give people a reason to come to you. Get a USP – A Unique Selling Point.

4) Your décor sucked
This is something a lot of places overlook, and it is one of the most obvious. Gays are the pickiest people in the world about their interior design; it’s a little bit of a stereotype cliché but it’s one that in my experience has proven to be true. If your décor isn’t eye catching; the gays won’t like it.

A particular failing is the toilets; The Malthouse had the single most disgusting facilities I have ever seen. The need to roll ones trousers up and wade through urine to go to the one cubicle that didn’t have a lock but could be wedged closed because of the dozens of layers of paint was truly a sobering experience.
Swish it up a bit! Fix your toilets!

Wellington boots were required.

5) The music sucked
This is a complaint I heard a lot about a couple of venues and I think it touches on points 1, 2 and 3. I personally had no issue with music as I am usually too incapacitated to notice but I think the blame for this one falls on issue 2. From what I understand DJ’s are usually hired because they are friendly with the person who runs / owns the bar, rather than their particular skill to read a room and perform a technically sound mix. I think it also helps if the DJ is a hot guy but that’s my issue and it also helps if that DJ specialises in a particular genre.

So those are my theories, what are yours? Leave a comment and let me know. Or don't.

Tweet