About the Aberdeen LGBT scene

Aberdeen is more and more turning into a scene where the gay people can and do go ALMOST anywhere and so most of the "trendier" places will have quite a few of us there. During the day time it is also quite common to find a few of us hanging at coffee shops like Kilau Coffee on Little Belmont Street (v. friendly atmosphere).

If you are looking for the gayest place in Aberdeen at the moment (ie. the one where you are most guaranteed that everyone around you is gay) that would be a place that used to be known as Oh Henry's (and most signs still say that) but is now known as Indigo.

Indigo is located in Adelphi, the entrance of which lies on Union street, across the road from Esslemont&Mackintosh, next to Alliance&Leicester.
Another entrance can be found from Market Street between the Snuggery and Abacos (across from the market).

Indigo is a pub/club and usually opens at 8pm and is open till late. Entrance fee varies and if memory serves there is none on weekdays, only 2-3 pounds after midnight Fridays and 3-4 pounds Saturdays. Drink prices are generally reasonable, for a club. There are 2 bars and a dancefloor, some sofas, tables and chairs as well as some minimal seating upstairs from the dancefloor.
Generally the atmosphere is nice and the place is usually quite busy.

For those of you who live in the past, Abacos is closed and so is Mint. However, where Mint used to be now there is an 80's club called "Club Tropicana" which apparently is good fun, but the crowds there are not always the nicest. It might be gay friendly, not sure, but certainly not gay.
For those of you who dont know where Mint was, it was situated off chapel street.

2 other pubs always rumoured to be gay-friendly are the Noose&Monkey which - if you are coming from Schoolhill etc - is just past the public library, more specifically on Rosemount Viaduct and the other place is the East Neuk Bar (I believe that's the right spelling...) on King Street, not far from Safeway.

The most recent development on the club scene in Aberdeen is XENOPHON, which is a club night that started Fri. May 27th 2005 and will run regularly after that at the Pelican, beneath the hotel Metro on Market Street. This is not a gay night, but rather a FLAMBOYANT night, which will invariably have a reasonably sized gay crowd. More info at http://www.xeno-phon.co.uk

More generally for other pubs and clubs in Aberdeen, the place to be is Belmont street (leads from Schoohill to Union St.) in particular gay clientele can often be found at Revolution and the Priory (more often than not downstairs). Espionage, Liquid and Ministry are all also quite popular these days and for the cheesiest tunes Chicago Rock Cafe/Jumping Jack's is usually your best bet. I have yet to enter Espionage without encountering a fair few gay people and the same goes for Jumping Jack's.

If however you are a true student and drink prices are your main concern, then our Union Bar (RGUnion, Schoolhill, bear in mind that it is a very protected venue in that you should not get any abuse or harassment of any kind at any time for being gay and the crowd's usually nice) and also a place called Archibald Simpson's on Castlegate (the corner of Union street and King street) are the places for you.

Bear in mind however, that many places do have offers on various nights so half the fun is knowing where to go at what time.

As for other gay related places there are many things and best to check the most recent ScotsGay magazine, but they will include PHACE Scotland (which are concerned with the health of LGBT people in Scotland as well as generally HIV/AIDS affected people etc), the GUM clinic at Woolmanhill (01224-555555) to make sure you're keeping those pesky STD's away, various groups such as the PRIDE Aberdeen (previously NE LGBT Forum) and Granite Sisters (Lesbians over 30) just to name a few. More are listed in our Contacts section.

Also, the Belmont Cinema on Belmont street has gay films on every now and then, check them for details.

Lastly, there is also a place called "Wellmans Health Studio" on 21-23 Justice Mill Lane (same building as PHACE Scotland used to be in) which is a gay sauna.