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GALA (Gay and Lesbian Amsterdam), one of Amsterdam’s most unique gay groups, celebrates its fifteenth anniversary this year. This non-profit volunteer group has been working hard in front of and behind the scenes for many years and has played a crucial role in developing the local gay scene.
GALA was founded in the early 1990s to strengthen bonds between different gay and lesbian organizations and groups and thus to anchor the visibility and emancipation of gay life in Amsterdam.
This was to be achieved by organizing various events and activities.
One of the most visible activities was the organizing of events on the Homomonument, which GALA produced until 2007. The Roze Wester Festival (29th/30th April and 5 May) and Summer Camp (during Gay Pride) have since become essential events in the gay calendar. Although GALA has since passed the baton onto a new production group (Joost van Bellen’s Meubel Stukken), they remain advisers to the festivals and still produce the hilarious Drag Queen Olympics on Queen’s Day Eve.
In the early 1990s with the aids scare in full swing, GALA took the courageous step in organizing the first major large-scale leather parties. These now legendary “Factory” parties, held in the old Silo squat, drew up to 1200 horny men and have since become the “gold standard” in safe sex parties. Several years later GALA began its S.O.S (Sex on Sunday) parties in the Eagle, which more than ten years later are still going strong and draw full houses. With funding from these parties, GALA has managed to thrive without any government subsidies, and thus maintain its independence.
And they have been able to take risks that other groups could ill afford. During the Gay Games GALA organized, together with the Russian State Circus, a wacky queer circus, complete with lesbian monkeys and dildo-juggling musclemen. In 2003 they planned the first gay fancy fair with the Gebr. Stuy at the Homomonument, and they were the force behind many parties including the now infamous Splash! sports/sex party.
In 2007 GALA launched the sexy (Z)onderbroek parties in Club La and on the 26th of April will start their new sportswear party Ladz, also in Club La (see www.ladz.nl).
In 1998 during the Gay Games, GALA initiated an information kiosk at the Homomonument, which later grew into Pink Point, the world’s first gay info kiosk. Supplying visitors to Amsterdam with information on the Homomonument as well as general gay information, Pink Point has since become an independent business in its own right, with GALA remaining as one of its key investors. Together with Pink Point they helped produce the book, “Dancing on the Homomonument,” flyers on the monument in eleven languages and lobbied the city council to improve the signage of the monument in 2006.
GALA has not only collaborated with almost every gay group in Amsterdam, but is also a board member of the Amsterdam 4 + 5 mei Comité and regularly takes part in discussions with local council.
With its long history of successes and can-do independent mentality, GALA has managed to make its own unique and invaluable stamp on the city’s gay sub-culture.
GALA was founded in the early 1990s to strengthen bonds between different gay and lesbian organizations and groups and thus to anchor the visibility and emancipation of gay life in Amsterdam.
This was to be achieved by organizing various events and activities.
One of the most visible activities was the organizing of events on the Homomonument, which GALA produced until 2007. The Roze Wester Festival (29th/30th April and 5 May) and Summer Camp (during Gay Pride) have since become essential events in the gay calendar. Although GALA has since passed the baton onto a new production group (Joost van Bellen’s Meubel Stukken), they remain advisers to the festivals and still produce the hilarious Drag Queen Olympics on Queen’s Day Eve.
In the early 1990s with the aids scare in full swing, GALA took the courageous step in organizing the first major large-scale leather parties. These now legendary “Factory” parties, held in the old Silo squat, drew up to 1200 horny men and have since become the “gold standard” in safe sex parties. Several years later GALA began its S.O.S (Sex on Sunday) parties in the Eagle, which more than ten years later are still going strong and draw full houses. With funding from these parties, GALA has managed to thrive without any government subsidies, and thus maintain its independence.
And they have been able to take risks that other groups could ill afford. During the Gay Games GALA organized, together with the Russian State Circus, a wacky queer circus, complete with lesbian monkeys and dildo-juggling musclemen. In 2003 they planned the first gay fancy fair with the Gebr. Stuy at the Homomonument, and they were the force behind many parties including the now infamous Splash! sports/sex party.
In 2007 GALA launched the sexy (Z)onderbroek parties in Club La and on the 26th of April will start their new sportswear party Ladz, also in Club La (see www.ladz.nl).
In 1998 during the Gay Games, GALA initiated an information kiosk at the Homomonument, which later grew into Pink Point, the world’s first gay info kiosk. Supplying visitors to Amsterdam with information on the Homomonument as well as general gay information, Pink Point has since become an independent business in its own right, with GALA remaining as one of its key investors. Together with Pink Point they helped produce the book, “Dancing on the Homomonument,” flyers on the monument in eleven languages and lobbied the city council to improve the signage of the monument in 2006.
GALA has not only collaborated with almost every gay group in Amsterdam, but is also a board member of the Amsterdam 4 + 5 mei Comité and regularly takes part in discussions with local council.
With its long history of successes and can-do independent mentality, GALA has managed to make its own unique and invaluable stamp on the city’s gay sub-culture.
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