Singapore Public Gay Parties - Nation

Nation

After establishing an English-language webportal Fridae.com in the year 2000, scientist and entrepreneur Dr. Stuart Koe tested the socio-political boundaries and organised Singapore's first private, widely-advertised open-air gay mega-party. Not unexpectedly, along with the government's liberalising trend at the time, the party was given the green light by the police. Koe even managed to secure corporate sponsorship for the historic event. In a shrewd move to underscore the gay community's loyalty to Singapore and the values which she upholds, the party was held on 8 August 2001 to coincide with National Day and aptly given the moniker "Nation".

It was held at Sentosa's Fantasy Island. "Nation"' was dubbed by the foreign media as Singapore's 'coming out party'. Over 1500 paying gay revellers celebrated both the eve of National Day, as well as their sense of community. Many flew in from Sydney, Malaysia, the U.S. and Hong Kong. The venue was divided into 3 zones: the Centro Boyz zone where the Miss Divastating 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 made their obligatory visit at around 11:30 p.m. to check that everything was all right and left without incident after 15 minutes. The mega-do also raised funds for local safe-sex group Action for AIDS (AfA) who received a portion of ticket sales.