‘It’s good to be exclusive’—the political landscape of queer nightlife in vienna

This paper explores current dynamics and challenges of queer parties, festive events and leisure spaces as crucial sites of identity exploration, peer support and community-building, making them integral to understanding contemporary queer realities. Queer nightlife in the city of Vienna is increasingly constrained by restrictive regulations and frequent closures of venues, developments that have been further exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic. Additionally, the Europe-wide rise in hostility towards LGBTQIA+ people underscores the need to analyse sites of communalization and resilience amid adversity. Accordingly, this paper focuses on how LGBTQIA+ indivduals perceive and experience nightlife in today’s context. We conducted three group discussions with a total of 17 persons who live in Vienna and identify as queer. Our findings highlight that, while (exclusively) queer nightlife spaces are valued for their potential to foster personal, social, and economic wellbeing, participants also noted increasing commercialization and gentrification. Moreover, Viennese queer nightlife is marked by fragmentation among subgroups within the queer community, with some divisions welcomed and others problematized. Overall, our results emphasize the importance of spaces tailored to subgroups within the LGBTQIA+ spectrum, alongside governmental support for queer leisure infrastructure.