LGBTQ pride events in Singapore

Singapore's first public LGBTQ+ pride festival, IndigNation, took place in August 2005, with a second annual IndigNation in August.
Prior to 2001, LGBTQ+ events were private and discreet, with hardly any public advertisements. These gatherings took place indoors, especially on Sunday nights at various mainstream discos that were eager to tap into the pink dollar on a day when business from their straight patrons was slow. This phenomenon began in the early 1980s when the police started to turn a blind eye to men disco-dancing with each other, but not during the slow numbers, when they were cautioned by the management of these venues to "behave" to avoid complaints from heterosexual patrons.
By the mid-1980s, Sunday nights at these discos saw an increasing number of gay men, leading to a shift in clientele. As a result, management became more accepting of same-sex couples engaging in slow dancing and close embraces.
Realizing the untapped potential and pent-up demand for LGBTQ+ pride events, more and more mainstream discos advertised Sundays as "men's night" to attract the LGBTQ+ community. Venues such as Marmota, Niche, Legend, and Studebaker's profited from this. However, there was still an unmet need on all the other nights of the week.
This need was filled by pioneering entrepreneurs, especially Max Lim, who organized weekday private gay events at roving locations such as discos at Far East Plaza along Orchard Road and nightspots like Dancers - the Club and Forbidden City at Clarke Quay. Soon, other gay businessmen set up discos like Taboo and Why Not in Tanjong Pagar, which were exclusively gay every night of the week.
Breaking out of the confines of indoor venues, Max Lim organized Singapore's first open-air private gay events advertised through leaflets and word-of-mouth at spacious venues such as the East Coast Lagoon and Big Splash. These were a major success as they were a novelty due to the amount of space in which attendees could roam, eat, drink, dance, and see what individual events had to offer. Despite this, they still remained private affairs, out of the radar of the mainstream community and media. As such, advertising could not be utilized, which limited the patronage of these events.
After establishing an English-language Web Portal, Fridae.com, in 2000, scientist and entrepreneur Dr. Stuart Koe tested the socio-political boundaries and organized Singapore's first private, widely advertised LGBTQ+ pride event. The party was approved by the police. Koe secured corporate sponsorship for the event. In a move to emphasize the LGBTQ+ community's loyalty to Singapore, the party was held on 8 August 2001, one day before National Day, and was named "Nation."
It was held at Sentosa's Fantasy Island. Over 1,500 attendees celebrated the eve of National Day, as well as their sense of community. Many flew in from Sydney, Malaysia, the United States, and Hong Kong. The venue was divided into 3 zones: the Centro Boyz zone where the Miss Devastating drag competition was held, the Womyn's zone where no men were allowed for most of the evening, and the Chill Out area where guests could mingle and booths were set up to sell food, drinks, toys and to distribute flyers. 8 to 10 uniformed Police officers visited at around 11:30 p.m. to check that everything was all right and left without incident after 15 minutes. The event also raised funds for the local safe-sex group Action for AIDS (AFA) which received a portion of ticket sales.
Despite initial concerns that there would be Government resistance to another gay Nation party, more than 2,500 people, dressed in red-and-white, gathered at the Fountain Gardens and Musical Fountain in Sentosa on Thursday 9 August 2003 for Singapore’s 37th birthday and 2nd pride party. Nation.02, co-organized by Fridae Newsletter and Kinemat Productions was sponsored by Qantas and other corporations including Pepsi, Planet Fitness, and The Gallery Hotel. Partygoers had a choice of 2 dance areas with top Sydney DJs Luke Leal and Mark Alsop; DJ Lisa C. and Borhead from Kinemat Productions, co-organizer of the event. They were treated to a laser show by Oracle Lasers, percussion by Idham Budiman, and visual effects by Fake from Kinemat. Attendance by regional visitors was higher than the previous year, drawing close to 500 partygoers, mainly from Hong Kong, Thailand, and Taiwan.
Fridae Newsletter's Nation.03 extravaganza at Sentosa expanded to become a 3-day event in 2003, attracting an estimated 4,500 attendees intent on celebrating Singapore's 38th National Day. It included a welcome party at Why Not? bar on 7 August and a poolside recovery party on 9 August at the water-theme park Big Splash and Tunnel Club, also located on the same premises. This year's major corporate sponsor was Subaru represented locally by Motor Image Enterprises Pte Ltd. An estimated 1,000 partygoers were visitors from Australia, Hong Kong, Japan, Malaysia, Taiwan, Thailand and as far away as Canada and the United States. The Sijori Resort Sentosa, located a few minutes from the party grounds and Hotel 1929, the official hotel for the party, reported a 100 percent occupancy rate during the period. Nation.03 marked a milestone in that it was the first time in Singaporean television history that a local gay event had been reported in a positive light, accompanied by snippets of bare-chested men dancing on podiums. The following day, Channel NewsAsia and its sister station MediaCorp TV Channel 5 announced, 'Nation.03 can be seen as a gauge of Singapore's tolerance.'
Nation.04 featured visual effects, venues, and international circuit DJs from Taiwan, Japan, Australia, USA and Singapore.
The weekend commenced with a "Make Love, Not War" Opening Party at Suntec City Singapore International Convention and Exhibition Centre on Saturday 7 August, followed by the main event, Nation at the Sentosa Musical Fountain on 8 August 2004 and the Closing Party at the Zouk Club on 9 August 2004.
For the first time, Nation included the participation of various arts organizations in an informal "Nation Arts Programme," including the plays Mergers/Wills by Toy Factory in Mandarin, Top or Bottom and Mardi Gras by The Necessary Stage, and The Revenge of the Dim Sum Dollies by Dream Academy Productions. 2 related art exhibitions were also held during this period, "Red + White = Pink" by Utterly Art and an exhibition by Art Seasons.
The private party was the largest in the series, and attracted more than 8,000 attendees, 40% of whom were international visitors. Tourist revenue generated during the festival was estimated to be nearly Sing$6 million, according to data collected by an independent market research firm.
In April 2005, the Licensing Division of the Singapore Police rejected Fridae Newsletter's application to hold Nation.05, which had been held annually since National Day in August 2001, citing the event to be 'contrary to the public interest.'. Nation.05, slated to coincide with Singapore's 40th birthday, had sponsorship by Motorola for the second consecutive year and Subaru for the third. Dr. Stuart Koe, CEO of Fridae Newsletter said, 'We are disappointed that the authorities have deemed a National Day celebration by Singapore's gay citizens as being 'contrary to public interest' when it had previously been approved for four years without incident. This is a contradiction to previous calls for embracing diversity.'
Unable to hold the event in Singapore, Fridae Newsletter changed the venue to Phuket, Thailand. It was held from 4 to 6 November 2005 at 8 venues with DJs and artistes from the United States, Thailand, Australia, Japan, Malaysia, Singapore, New Zealand, and Hong Kong. The event helped Phuket in their effects in recovering its tsunami-devastated economy. It was reported in Australia's Sydney Morning Herald that Singapore's loss was Thailand's gain.
The event had a smaller turnout with less than 1,000 partygoers, mainly local Thais. The Crowne Plaza Hotel on Karon Beach was the hosting hotel for the event. The welcome reception was held around the hotel pool, the G.Y.M. party at the Arena disco, and the closing after-hours party at the Locker Room.
In early December 2004, the Public Entertainment Licensing Unit (PELU) of the police rejected an application for a public entertainment license to hold SnowBall.04 on 26 December 2004.
It was the first time that a PELU license had been denied as organizer Jungle Media, a subsidiary of Singapore-based Fridae.com, had obtained licenses for all similar past events, namely Snowball in December 2002 and 2003, Nation (August 2002, 2003, 2004), Squirt (April 2004), Boys of Summer (June 2003) and Paradise Ball (December 2003).
Despite the fact that Nation.04 had been nominated for "Best Event Experience" in the 2005 Singapore Tourism Awards, the Police said that, "the event is likely to be organized as a gay party which is contrary to public interest in general".
In a press statement, the Police said the following were taken into consideration:
Many gay analysts also felt that in addition to the above reasons given by the police, the concern raised in September 2004 by the Minister of State for Health, Dr. Balaji Sadasivan about the rising numbers of HIV cases in Singapore and his unsubstantiated attribution of the cause to fraternization between locals and Westerners during gay parties was pivotal in instigating the official policy turnaround.
Singapore's first public LGBTQ+ pride festival, IndigNation, took in during August 2005, with a second annual IndigNation in August 2006.