For the I Wanna Take You To A Gay Bar article in the March 2011 edition of OUTinPerth we conducted interviews with many people, far more than we could fit on a page of our newspaper. As part of our online extended coverage we’re pleased to provide the full response from Connections night club owner Tim Brown.
OUTinPerth Editor Graeme Watson asked Tim for his thoughts on the following questions,
1. How does Connections contribute to the community? What altruistic projects are you involved in?
2. Connections is 35 years old, how do you keep the club interesting, fresh and relevant to its clientele?
3. Concern has been raised that gay venues are being diluted to being a gay-friendly venues, what strategies do you 4. have in place to preserve queer culture?
5. How does Connections cater to older members of the community?
6. What new facilities will the proposed renovations of CONNECTIONS bring?
7. What are the challenges of operating a gay venue in 2011?
Tim Brown responded,
Connections is deeply involved in the community whether that be the GLBTQI one, that of Northbridge or the wider one. We see our role as one that is deeply engaged with community whoever that community may be. We are a business that needs to make money and turn a profit but we understand that success in this area is implicitly linked to our engagement with our community and development of the culture of those people.
For us it is, always was and will continue to not be about being gay or lesbian identifying it’s about identifying as different and then accepting that difference in others and going on to celebrate together. This philosophy and that of engagement in community and it’s shared culture informs all of our decision-making and will continue to do so.
As a community and culture (and in this case I mean the gay and lesbian one and to a lesser extent the bi and transgender one) we find ourselves at an interesting time in history. We have, for the most part assimilated into the wider community, but still need to hang on to and celebrate our culture. Our venues have a key role to play in this but so does the community. Its all well and good to assimilate and believe one doesn’t “need†one’s culture but there is obviously a real need for engagement in that community (as this website shows).
We must remember though that it’s a two way street and not always easy either. We all must remember that community and culture need dialogue and engagement from all parties. And sometimes that means as individuals or businesses we are required to give, perhaps even take some sort of loss, to contribute to the greater good. And, unfortunately, that commitment needs to be ongoing. I would ask anybody who chooses to enter this debate, have they actively contributed? Would they be willing to do so again?
Having said that though, we’re willing to do our part, having remained involved in Pride since it’s inception, working constantly with community groups, engaging with the Northbridge History Project, the redevelopment of the district and with numerous committees and agencies charged with making this city a better place. Making sure that the views and needs of our community are heard in that of the wider one.
This has become even more important as our city grows and changes and accordingly, we have tried to become more involved in those wider community development strategies of late. We are deeply committed to Perth being a richer place at every level (that is not just in monetary terms but culturally as well) for all of us and will do everything in our power to achieve those goals in real and meaningful ways. Ways that can give back to the community and enrich all our lives substantially.
It’s damn hard work running a venue and ever harder to make a buck. Sometimes engaging in and working with a community costs money in the short term but it makes it in the long one. Connections has always played a long game and will continue to do so.
Keeping a business relevant to its community requires constant vigilance. One must constantly be monitoring one’s business, the community in which it operates and the complex and ever changing relationship between the two. A venue that chooses to engage in this way is a far more complex and difficult beast to manage than one that chooses to only consider the bottom line but the profits it derives are far greater than anything that can be measured in dollars and cents. More importantly, those profits are shared by all participants.
To remain relevant whilst still satisfying loyal customers is a difficult task and this situation is made harder in a small town where all of us that identify as different (for whatever reasons) have been forced to party together but we must always remember that this is also our greatest strength. It’s about keeping open minds, being tolerant and being open to change. We don’t have to give up what we hold dear to do that .
Our culture is a valid and real one, one that should be nurtured, treasured and celebrated. This position was validated by the state government when they acknowledged OUR community as one as valid as any other ethnic group when putting together the Northbridge History Project. We must all work to defend and engage with that community. We must all be involved with it.
We argued for so many years to not be labeled and yet we find ourselves very quick to identify others as not belonging. This argument is not one of “gayâ€, gay friendly†or any other label. It is one of cultural imperatives not business ones. The engagement in these cultural imperatives (certainly for us and in light of this debate) should inform those business ones. It must underscore how business is done within this milieu. In this way a business remains relevant within it’s community and is ultimately successful (and that’s the long game I spoke of before). Those businesses that do not relate to their community in this way are doomed to failure.
That community means all its members, whether they be young or old. The drive to provide service/venues for all of these people is a great challenge, particularly in a city when many people leave town or settle in the suburbs as they get more mature. This city is expanding and changing very rapidly and many of those customers now live, work and wish to play in the city.
The challenge will be to provide spaces that fulfill those needs and, we at Connections are up to that challenge. The terrace area was a first step in providing areas that cater to a more mature and sophisticated clientele. It has been extremely successful. It is our intention to develop these ideas and concepts further to provide new spaces for us all.
Currently applications are being prepared to extend the terrace area and provide an indoor version of this space in the adjacent room. This will, if approved, add to the diversity of product on offer and add to what the nightclub can offer to a broader range of our community. Anyone who completed our survey in recent months will have a fuller picture of when we intend to create.
A lease has been taken on the adjacent building, a building that reaches from James St down to the laneways of Chinatown. In line with the City of Perth’s intention to develop the laneways of Northbridge in a similar fashion to those of the city proper and develop a rich and diverse “laneway culture†we are working on plans to develop small bars in this space and engage with the forgotten spaces of the city. As always, the cultural imperatives described above will inform the creation of these spaces.
