| Out UK’s Adrian Gillan meets the likely lads of Liverpool - a city famous for The Beatles, The Liver Birds and of course its two football clubs. The city and the gay scene in it has undergone a major resurgence in recent years, and there's a scarce shortage of sexy scally scousers bulging in their trousers to provide you with a memorable night out!. | |
| Liverpool is a city that is very proud of its nightlife, due to both the variety and quality on offer. Not only is there Albert Dock made famous by a morning TV show but there are superclubs and pubs, a thriving gay quarter, comedy by the waterfront, dance warehouses, concept bars and of course loads of music. Liverpool at night has many different faces. |
 Liverpool's Albert Dock with a sunset over the River Mersey. Photo: CassielMx |
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Just around the corner from the famous Cavern Club, where The Beatles and many other performers made their name is the
Liverpool Gay Quarter. It's a mixture of LGBT Bars & Clubs which can mainly been found on Stanley Street, Dale Street,
Cumberland Street, Victoria Street and Eberle Street. They even have their own Stanley Street Gay Quarter Association.
Three of Liverpool's best known gay venues have recently closed - what was the oldest gay bar in town, Paco’s, The Curzon which was probably the most male-dominated gay venue in town, with its popular porno screens and large bar, and the biggest gay nightclub in town Garlands. It's sad to see them go but don't be put off, there are several new boys on the block that you should certainly check out. Let's start in the Gay Quarter and some well established names. The Lisbon Bar, is a spacious, traditionally decorated basement pub, supposedly mixed but certainly rather gay when we dropped by – lots of ladies too, though gay boys and babes do seem to mix it well around here generally. It's a traditional basement bar with ornate ceiling, serving drinks, burgers and ciabattas. | |
| Be sure to sail by and dock at The Navy Bar bobbing along stylishly just down the road. It's a convivial multi-floor bar with Tuesday talent nights and Sunday cheap booze. Close by is the Superstar Boudouir with a fab sound system and big screens to lure style-babes down to its plush basement lair. It has 7-day a week cabaret, cheesy music, drag and student nights. |
 Liverpool at night from the Mersey. |
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Step down into earthy stalwart Masquerade Bar just around the block on Cumberland
Street to set your pulse apace. Routinely packed with gay youth whirling themselves
around the floor, surrendering to the dragged-up hosts who keep the party pumping,
coaxing sweet karaoke from the most blushing babe.
You should visit G-Bar just up over Dale Street for the posing style set and pouting student crowd, open from 10pm and partying right through ‘til breakfast at weekends - with a busy dancy mass upstairs and a trancy door-fee’d basement beneath. This is a 3-room gay bar which attracts a mixed crowd for afterhours partying particularly in the basement. Also worth a mention: The Poste House, also known as the Postie which is an establishment built in 1820! It's a snug, 2-level gathering place with a traditional pub on the main level plus a gay-friendly space. Kittys Showbar is known for its good old fashioned British Drag while FunnyBoyz is a new concept in Drag Cabaret, bringing you the most hilarious Drag Shows, Comedy Bingo, Silly Games, Cheesy Tunes and good value drinks. The company OMG now operate some of the busiest gay venues in various cities throughout the UK. All of them have state-of-the-art sound & lighting systems and offer a buzzing atmosphere. | |
| Liverpool is no different, in fact they have two venues which are next door to one another. OMG Dorothy's Liverpool is a Dragbar, Showbar and Party Bar, while OMG Liverpool, is their main venue and has something on every night of the week. Whatever your preference there's something for you with Cabaret, Karaoke and their well known EPIC Student nights. |
 Pride in Liverpool. Photo: korhil65 |
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Liverpool's biggest and most vibrant LGBT nightclub is Heaven. It hosts rotating DJs & weekend dance parties, plus cocktails,
entertainment and events. There's an extensive menu of drinks and bottles you can order
and you'll find it just a 1-min walk from the Cavern Club.
Pride in Liverpool, is a weekend-long festival to celebrate LGBT culture. It is held annually on Tithebarn Street and the gay quarter, in Liverpool City Centre. The event is held on the closest weekend to 2 August, in commemoration of the death of Michael Causer, the young gay man who was murdered in the city in 2008. There haven't been Pride celebrations for the past two years but they hope to be back and bigger than ever in 2022. | |
| The Brazilica Festival is the other great annual celebration in the city. It's the largest celebration of Brazilian culture in the UK that has been held annually in Liverpool, since July 2008. The festival began during Liverpool's reign as European Capital of Culture in 2008 when a Rio-style Carnival Parade swept through the streets of the city. |
 Liverpool's Brazilica Festival. Photo: korhil65 |
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In its current format, the festival consists of a week-long celebration of Brazilian culture
including music, art, food, film and dance events that take place at indoor venues across the city which build up to an outdoor city centre carnival street party
and samba carnival parade around Williamson Square.
Looking to get all hot and steamy? You could do worse than take a taxi ride to the Dolphin Sauna, a hotbed of steam and passion secreted above a parade of unsuspecting shops, attracting all ages; or, much nearer, stroll down the narrow lane behind the bars on Stanley Street; or, in summer, try the infamous Otterspool Car Parks, notably the bushes behind the large parking bays just south of the docks. But if it’s your mind you need stimulate, News From Nowhere is a vast and rambling gay-run bookshop: an oasis of gay books, mags and vids, side by side with everything from Outer Mongolian poetry to militant Marxist rantings - plenty to idle away a rainy afternoon. The shop is actually a Workers' cooperative selling a whole range of radical books plus world, folk and roots music CDS and magazines. There truly is something for everyone in this great city, but it has to be said that Liverpool suffers from a dearth of gay accommodation. It's best to check out details of what's available at special rates through our hotel partners Bookings. | |
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Revised January 2022. |