Last year, the iconic Soho bar G-A-Y shut its doors, which its owner partly blamed on Soho’s declining status as a “gay capital”. While a number of LGBTQ+ bars and pubs on Old Compton Street are still reliably busy, it’s true that the area has come to feel more generic in recent years, and that the queer energy of London has drifted south and east. But this Pride weekend saw the launch of Coven: Headquarters, a new venue taking over G-A-Y’s five-storey former site and offering the kind of experimental, inclusive queer nightlife which central London hasn’t seen in years.

London’s first Black-owned queer venue since the 1970s, Coven first opened in 2025 as a bar, venue and arts centre in Hackney Wick, before its lease ended later that year. Taking over a building as large as its new Soho site in time for Pride was a huge undertaking. “It only happened because the community and its allies locked in,” actor and Coven founder Matthew Jacobs Morgan tells Dazed. “Friends came by after work, armed with paint brushes and rollers. Staff came in early to lend a hand with things which were not part of their job description, and DJs played sets for a fraction of their usual because they understood that this is a community enterprise and that their art is an investment in this space.” 

Coven’s Pride party was curated by artist and promoter Bambi Dyboski, who sees the space as being about more than just nightlife. “The potential is endless,” she says. “There is a desperate need for third spaces in London: for coffee meet-ups, a space to develop creative ideas, show films, share work and build careers, relationships and lifelines for our community to thrive despite the tumultuous political climate we’re experiencing.” At the same time, the nightlife aspect is important, particularly in light of Soho’s slow decline as a queer party capital. “While curating this line-up, it was important to me to bring together DJs and performers from all facets of the queer scene under one roof and to get the girls booked. We’re bringing Soho back and putting the divas to the front!”

For Nicky Harrington, a queer woman who attended Saturday’s Pride party, Coven represents something different to the type of gay bar which has previously defined central London. “I went to Heaven for the first time when I was 16 with my older sister’s ID. I was met with the sad reality that ‘queer’ nightlife in Soho was exclusively for cis gay men, a few drag queens and straight girls who want a new gay best friend. It would be cool to see something in central could be genuinely queer again – it’s what Leigh Bowery would have wanted!”

While running a queer venue has its challenges anywhere, never mind in the centre of one of the world’s most expensive cities, Coven’s Pride party was a promising start – as Gracie Brackstone’s gloriously chaotic pictures of the night make clear. “I had a ki performing at Coven!” says model and performer Willow Stone. “Bambi curated a gorgeous lineup of divas to entertain and perform & DJ. A gorgeous time was had. It was chaotic, but what Pride isn't!” There is clearly a lot of goodwill towards the venue, and a lot of people determined to make it work – Soho needs somewhere reliably fun that caters to a younger, more diverse queer crowd. “This building holds so much meaning to so many people (including myself),” says Morgan. “Seeing some of the cuntiest divas in town just ripping it on the decks is a dream come true.”