news

With the hearts and flowers of Valentine's Day gone back in storage for another year, Bangkok and Pattaya both got into a festival mood with major events by Bangkok Pride (handing over the donations to its charities) and Pattaya Gay Festival (starting their fundraising with a bang). Even the government got in the mood with further fine-tuning of the venue closing time regulations - basically bringing it all full circle with most venues allowed to stay open the same hours they were open last year!

The Pattaya Gay Festival 2004 got started with a bang at the end of February with the official launch party in Boystown. The launch party filled the soi to overflowing with more than 400 people attending. The party was a spectacular success, with the usually great shows and even a bucking bull for the brave to try and ride, and raised 210,000 Baht for the PGF coffers. The Mr Muscle competition at Throb/Splash was also a popular event with the bar packed with enthusiastic customers voting for their favourite muscleman. By the time the winner was chosen more than 75,000 baht had been raised for PGF. Upcoming PGF events in the next few weeks include Disco Divas at Boyz Boyz Boyz, a dinner at Bruno's, a soi party in Jomtien and a party at Throb/Splash. Full details are in the calendar here and on the new 2004 PGF web site. Pictures from all the recent events are on boxer's website.

The Bangkok Pride Coalition said thank you for 2003 and welcome to 2004 at their Appreciation Party at Freeman Dance Arena on March 11. The retiring committee oversaw the distribution of the more than 300,000 Baht raised in 2003 to the selected charities - Alden House again, and for the first time local gay and lesbian groups: Bangkok Rainbow, Rainbow Sky and Sapphan. The new 2004 executive also laid out their plans for 2004. The next major BPC event will be the Silom Soi 4 Pink Party in May. Full details of BPC events are in the calendar here and on the new 2004 BPC web site. Pictures from the appreciation party are in the gallery here.

Elsewhere around the scene, Amor Restaurant in Pattaya is celebrating its 10 Anniversary with special dinners in early April, and in Bangkok Telephone Pub has just celebrated Khun Tai's birthday yesterday, and will be looking for "Mr Telephone" on March 25. Meanwhile over in Duangthawee Plaza there is lots of activity with Blue Star bar moving downstairs into half of Yes! Pub to make way for the new larger Dream Boys upstairs - opening soon. Also opening before the end of the month is a new bar where Fuji used to be. Meanwhile Songkran is comming in April - a good time to be out and about if you have your water gun loaded!

On the new social order front the good news is opening and closing hours in and out of zones look like staying exactly the same as they have been. New venues opening will have to follow the (still not exactly clear) new times. But the new social order campaign does continue - both straight and gay venues have been raided and patrons required to show ID (if Thai) or passport (if foreigner) and also all patrons being drug tested.

But as is always the case in Thailand, there is lots of fun to be had - see the calendar for details of what else is coming up over the next few months and the directory listings for the latest venue changes!