Lost venues of gay Blackpool

Why venues move in Blackpool

Blackpool's gay scene has never stood still. Leases end, owners retire, breweries buy and sell, and once in a while the council knocks a whole block down. Many of the best-loved venues in the town's history are now a supermarket, a chain bar or a building with a different name over the door. Others carried their names with them to new homes. Knowing where they were turns a stroll around the quarter into a walk through forty-plus years of history.

Gone Gay, Chapel Street (1970s)

Before he opened a club, Basil Newby ran a fancy-goods shop on Chapel Street, near the Promenade, which was already called Gone Gay when he bought it. The shop next door was called Go Gay. It stayed open until two or three in the morning in summer, and he sold it after a couple of years to help fund his first nightclub. It was not a gay venue as such, but it is where the story of the man who built most of Blackpool's scene begins.

Lucy's and the Clifton (1970s)

When Newby was thinking about opening a club in the late 1970s, he counted just two places in Blackpool where gay people could reliably go: Lucy's Bar and the Clifton bar. Little has been written about either, and exactly when they became gay venues is not recorded. Lucy's lasted much longer. By the 2000s, as Lucy's Two on Abingdon Street, it was a bar mainly for women, welcoming anyone who respected that, and one of the few women-centred spaces the town has had. If you drank at Lucy's or the Clifton, your memories would be a real gift to the town's heritage projects.

The Flamingo, Talbot Road (1979 to 2006)

The most important lost venue of all. Newby took over the Flamingo, a top-floor club opposite Blackpool North station, in 1979 and made it Blackpool's first openly gay nightclub. At its height it could hold up to 2,000 people and drew visitors from all over Britain, with Grace Jones, Divine, Lily Savage and an early Take That among the acts. The council bought the building for its Talbot Gateway redevelopment, the Flamingo moved out in January 2006, and the building was demolished in 2007. A supermarket stands on the site today. Newby has called for a blue plaque to mark the spot.

The original Flying Handbag, Talbot Road

On the ground floor of the same building was a pub called the King's Arms, which Newby bought and turned into the Flying Handbag. Linked to the Flamingo by internal doors, it was the quieter half of the complex, a place to talk before heading upstairs. Photographs taken in the early 1990s show it packed and cheerful. The Handbag survived the demolition by moving on 20 January 2006 into a purpose-built pub at the corner of Queen Street and Lord Street, where it still trades today.

Funny Girls, Queen Street and The Strand (1994 to 2002)

Funny Girls began in July 1994 in a small corner unit at the Promenade end of Queen Street, where it meets The Strand. It quickly spread into the shops next door and turned Queen Street into a nightlife street. When the show moved to the restored Odeon on Dickson Road in 2002, the corner later became a Walkabout bar. Stand there and imagine the queues snaking down the street on a summer night in the 1990s.

Roxy's and the Whippet Inn, Queen Street

The three-storey building at 23 Queen Street has had more names than most. In the 1990s it was Faye's Cafe Bar. Then it became Roxy's, with a multi-level, gothic-style interior, a downstairs dancefloor and nights of drag cabaret and karaoke. Under Newby's group it became the Whippet Inn. When the group went into administration in 2018 it passed to Thwaites, and in 2019 it was sold to new owners who reopened it as Sherlock's in November 2021. So the building lives on, even if three of its names do not.

Trades Bar, Queen Street

Before it was Kaos, the building at 38 to 42 Queen Street was the Trades Bar. Kaos itself went quiet for a while before reopening under new owners in July 2026 with a sparkling refit, so this is one lost name with a happy ending.

Buzz, Queen Street

Buzz was one of Newby's Queen Street bars, right next to the Flamingo's later home. In 2018 a licensing panel heard that drinks were being carried between Buzz and the Flamingo, a sign of how closely the two worked together. Buzz went to Thwaites in January 2019 and was among the venues Newby bought back that August. Its later history has not been well recorded.

The Flamingo, Queen Street (2006 to around 2020)

The Flamingo's second home was in the upper floors of the old Odeon, with its entrance on Queen Street. It spread across several floors with two dancefloors and multiple bars, and for more than a decade it was one of the biggest late-night venues in town, open seven nights a week. After a licence suspension in 2018, the group's administration, a takeover by Thwaites and Newby's buy-back in 2019, it stopped running as a gay club in the early 2020s. Today the upper floors of the Funny Girls building are run as a separate nightclub space.

Basil's on the Strand and Bar B

Newby's group also ran a bar called Basil's on the Strand, close to the original Funny Girls. By the mid-2000s it had closed, and a new bar above Funny Girls at the Odeon, Bar B, with a dancefloor, lounges and a pool table, was billed as its replacement. Like so many of the quarter's venues, it reflected how quickly the scene shifted from one building to the next.

Pepe's, Talbot Road

Pepe's, on Talbot Road, was described in the 2000s as one of Blackpool's oldest bars, open seven days a week with regular entertainment. It was still supporting Blackpool Pride in 2016, alongside Ma Kelly's, Viva and others. For a time Newby's group owned it and leased the bar out. It no longer appears among the quarter's LGBTQ+ venues.

Mardi Gras at the coach station

In the mid-2000s a bar called Mardi Gras traded below ground in the coach station complex on Talbot Road, with cabaret and male strip shows hosted by a drag compère. It was one of the few gay venues then outside Newby's group. Today's Mardi Gras bar and hotel on Lord Street carries the same name.

Sapphires, Topping Street

More recently, Sapphires, a gay cabaret bar and nightclub just off Talbot Road on Topping Street, was known for drag cabaret and party nights before it closed.

Help us fill the gaps

The dates on this page are as precise as the surviving records allow, and some are still uncertain. If you can tell us when Lucy's or the Clifton first welcomed gay customers, what Pepe's was like in the 1980s, or what happened to Buzz, please share your memories with the town's heritage projects. Photographs, flyers, drinks tokens and membership cards are especially precious. See our guide to heritage projects and archives for how to contribute.