The truth is that the presence these days in the streets of the center of Barcelona of tremendously stocky men with super makeup wearing tank tops and fishnets all the time smiling is much lower than that registered for these dates in the last decades.
The marathon succession of wild soirees that the Circuit traditionally organizes at the beginning of August for more than a week for a very specific gay public has always packed the city with the carnival air typical of pagan festivals, with thousands and thousands of middle-aged men, with few loads and many resources from the four corners of the planet willing to have a fabulous time at all costs...
"Summer is turning out to be somewhat discreet, little to do with those prior to the pandemic," says Cameron Mellalieu, one of Gayxample's leaders for decades, behind the bar at the Boxer Café, a club-inspired joint on Diputació street the usual Berlin techno music. The recovery is not taking place at the pace we expected. Inflation, this world crisis and the price of plane tickets is doing us a lot of damage. This year fewer people are coming, and they are doing it on fewer days, and on top of that, they spend less. Only the most privileged can keep up."
We are talking about a lot of dinks and bohos –acronyms for double income no kids and bohemian burgeoies–, and also many musculocas, as they are known among themselves in these latitudes. Many of the joys that sparked optimism last summer gradually faded away.
In addition to this joint where the clientele laughs putting on dog masks like a puppy, Mallalieu also runs a shop for fetish cuts and other styles just opposite, and very close by another very naughty accessories store, and also other establishments of the same type in Berlin , Madrid, Torremolinos and Gran Canaria. And he regrets that this year, at the moment and for the first time, he is billing much more in Berlin than in Barcelona, and also in some other city that he does not want to specify because this business in which he operates is as succulent as competitive.
“Barcelona is very expensive,” he continues. There is no way to find a hotel room in the Eixample for less than 180 euros per night. There is also a lack of tourist apartments. His international reputation has worn off a bit in recent years. In addition, the number of cities that compete for gay tourists continues to grow. Fortunately we have the Circuit, which for us has always been like summer Christmas. What happens is that in these circumstances the Circuit's oxygen cylinder is no longer enough, it doesn't fully compensate for what is happening the rest of the year. We hope that Jaume Collboni, our new mayor, our first gay mayor, will make the neighborhood look as it should, like so many gay neighborhoods in the world”.
“Yes –Marco García, one of the main businessmen in the city's gay nightlife sector, from Grupo Arena- intervenes, last summer was very good, but this year, above all because of the crisis, we are losing the average public. The loss of purchasing power is occurring in all major economies. We are noticing it in all the stores. American tips are missed. And the people attracted by the Circuit are coming fewer days than usual. They come to their favorite party and that's it! They no longer get lost in the city as much as before, because of the monuments and the beaches. Let's see if things pick up this second weekend... Besides, the competition is getting bigger every day”.
Maspalomas, Torremolinos, Madrid, Mykonos, Berlin, Tel Aviv, Cape Town, Eivissa, Amsterdam, Las Vegas, Phuket..., the crown of gay tourism today has more suitors than ever. And it's time to recognize that today the term Gayxample reminds many of the times of Pryca, Simago and cathode tube televisions. Furthermore, the long list of letters that have recently been used to refer to the collective is nothing but a reflection of the multitude of different ways of being that it brings together.
A group of friends in their fifties, the sea of groomed, mainly from Los Angeles, delightedly enjoying a few cocktails in the bar on the seventh floor of the Axel hotel, a pioneer establishment in the gay tourism industry in these latitudes. Angelenos say that they will spend a week in the city, that it is not the first time they have come to Barcelona, that they love the freedom and respect that its streets exude, the hospitality and kindness of its neighbors, the history and tradition of an old European city... They tell them that the first demonstration in Spain in defense of the rights of homosexuals took place in Barcelona, that in the 70s a lot of artists found here the airs that they did not find in their towns. Right here, in the Gothic Quarter, the first gay sex shop on the Peninsula opened! “Yes,” the 50-somethings from Los Angeles respond. Barcelona is fantastic, so old! What happens is that now it is very expensive, suddenly Spain is very expensive! On previous visits, some of these friends had a restorative epilogue on the Costa Brava after the Circuit parties. But not this year.
Juan Julià, founder and owner of the Axel hotel group, details that the prices of the rooms rose because in recent years they dragged on the ground, and that the same thing happens in Eivissa, Madrid, San Sebastián... "This year he stopped coming Many people who traveled a lot in the last two years to the city took advantage of the fact that everything was cheaper. That is why you see less movement on the streets. Instead, our original audience target, with greater purchasing power, is making a comeback. These days of the Circuit, our two hotels in the city are full. Our summer is being good”.
