How a cult queer club night rose from the ashes of lockdown: ‘It existed against the odds’
LGBTQ+ nightclub The Chateau burned bright and fast before COVID forced it to close. Now, it’s making a comeback.. (Supplied)
The pandemic dealt a body blow to queer nightlife up and down the UK. The Chateau – an underground queer club night in south-east London – burned bright and fast before COVID forced it to close permanently.
Now, it’s making a comeback.
Laurie Belgrave knew he had found something special when he first set foot inside the venue that would become home to The Chateau.
“I found an empty basement bar of a hotel in Camberwell [in south-east London],” Belgrave tells PinkNews. “Miraculously, it was covered in these amazing stained glass windows. It was an incredibly ridiculous, over-the-top space.”
That basement became a space where the local LGBTQ+ community could be unabashedly themselves. It was a place for exploration, creativity and freedom.
As other queer venues shut their doors, The Chateau became a surprise success story.
“We threw some parties and very quickly it started to gain traction and become quite popular, I think because it was really needed in the area. It was fulfilling something the community really wanted,” Belgrave says.
“We found a pocket of something and managed to create something really special in this basement space, and then we just kept on getting extended month-on-month on this handshake agreement – no contract.”
Sana Barclay was among those who first went to The Chateau after hearing about it on the grapevine.
The year was 2018 and Barclay had just arrived in London from the United States for a graduate programme. She didn’t really feel like she knew anyone in the city – and more than anything, she wanted to become better acquainted with the local queer community.
“I was just talking to a friend of mine saying, this is where I want to go, this is what I hope for in London, and she was just like, ‘Well have you been to The Chateau?’ It was the start of a real love affair that I have with the queer community in south-east London.”
The Chateau’s electric energy spread through word of mouth. As Barclay explains: “It really represented a communing space for people, but also it was just a really beautiful space for self-exploration.”
The Chateau is bracing for a comeback
The club night was thriving. It seemed like an unstoppable force on London’s queer scene, until COVID-19 came along.
“For nightlife it was obviously completely catastrophic – although that wasn’t really the most important thing at all at the time,” Belgrave says.
On 23 March, the UK was plunged into lockdown. Nightlife was shut down completely. After two glorious years, The Chateau closed its doors.
“It was a really tough time,” Belgrave continues. “We’d been kind of on the way out of that space. We were going to do some final parties there in the spring and then springboard into the next space. I was very much looking to make The Chateau a more permanent fixture and we had the rug pulled out from under us completely.”
They held some virtual events, but they struggled to replicate the feeling of connection that a physical space fosters.
What followed was a long period of introspection about what The Chateau could be – and what it should be long term.
“Running The Chateau was the most incredible experience of my life but it was also hugely emotionally draining and physically draining for myself and for the rest of the crew who ran it,” Belgrave says.
“In the queer community, often we see a pattern where people who do operate nights or spaces or take the lead often end up burning out or having to pull back for various reasons. In this period of COVID, that’s something I spent a lot of time thinking about and that really informs where we are now as an organisation.”
He adds: “If we’re brutally honest about it, as beautiful and chaotic and amazing as it was, it was not sustainable. And in a way that was what made it special – because it existed against the odds. It shouldn’t have really existed.”
Belgrave and his collaborators are now bracing themselves for a rebirth – The Chateau will be taking over the Queen Elizabeth Hall Foyer at London’s prestigious Southbank Centre on 9 June as part of Christine & The Queens’ Meltdown Festival.
It will be their first standalone party since they closed their doors in March 2020.
“It feels really special. I’m really excited,” Belgrave says.
“The positivity has been really amazing since we launched this event. It feels like something is happening again.
“With The Chateau, we’ve been going all the way through the pandemic and through the last few years, but it feels like we’re really putting our flag in the ground again and saying that The Chateau exists and it’s here to support and platform south east London’s queer community.”
The Chateau will make its grand return as part of Christine & The Queens’ Meltdown Festival on 9 June. Tickets are available here.
