From Absinthe to The Avro: a decade of safer spaces

House of Adam and Steve started with a name too good to waste. "With names like ours, how can you not take advantage of it?" What began as a one-off party at Baltimore House has grown into a decade of turning Hamilton's rooms queer, one fabulous night at a time.

From one-offs to a movement

Then came the parties at Absinthe that went gloriously off the rails, an Easter Sunday Drag Service at Moodys Pizza Bar & Arcade, Grindhouse Halloween blowouts at The Staircase, and Reel Queens camp-classic nights on the big screen at The Westdale. Each one proved the same thing: the appetite for queer joy in Hamilton was enormous, and nobody was feeding it.

A partnership model

Rather than gamble everything on a single venue that could close, HOAS does it differently. We partner with bars, theatres and restaurants across the city — Bernie's Tavern, The Avro, The Staircase, The Westdale and more — to turn rooms people already love into dependable, welcoming, unmistakably queer spaces. When the night ends, the room goes back to being a pizza joint or a theatre, and the next HOAS night simply moves to where it is needed.

Bigger rooms, bigger names

The model scaled. HOAS has hosted Drag Race headliners like Lexi Love and Ilona Verley, thrown afterparties for touring queens like Laganja Estranja, and taken the show on the road to Guelph. It has also shown up for the community that shows up for it, including a drag fundraiser for SWAP Hamilton, the city's Sex Workers' Action Program.

Hamilton's queer party planners

The Silhouette called HOAS Hamilton's queer party planners. Ten years in, we will happily take it, and we are only getting started.