Nine months since it closed, the former home of G-A-Y has opened as a new queer venue. Reclaiming the legendary space at 30 Old Compton Street is Coven: Headquarters. The massive new club proudly bills itself as a space for ‘every letter of LGBTQIA’ and, better yet, it’s spread over a whopping five storeys.
The venue is the brainchild of Matthew Jacobs Morgan, who started Coven as a club night in Hackney Wick just last year. Morgan has rapidly scaled the concept into a major queer cultural project and its bricks-and-mortar venue opened this week.
G-A-Y permanently closed its doors in October, with owner Jeremy Joseph blaming rent issues, the area’s dwindling gay identity and NIMBYs. He announced on Instagram he’d be prioritising Heaven nightclub instead.
Frequenters of G-A-Y may find plenty of the old bar’s remnants in the new venue. One of the screens downstairs still has the old logo dimly but permanently burned on, while stacks of branded plastic cups still sit in the cupboards.
Morgan told Time Out: ‘A month or two before [G-A-Y] closed I came here with a friend and it did feel a little bit sad.’
‘A lot of the energy that used to be there wasn’t anymore. But it is and always has been a very important space for the community – I want to make sure I’m doing it for them.’
Coven aims to honour the history of the location while confidently establishing its own identity. In the main room, an antique fountain sits centre stage filled with books on queer history, and just a few metres away a grand piano gleams beneath a wall of screens. A battered shell mirror sits in the corner upstairs, brought from the club night’s original Hackney Wick venue.
By night, Coven is a nightclub featuring live music, cabaret (hence the piano) and DJs. Having officially opened its doors on Friday June 19, live DJs will power a rotating schedule of themed nights from Afrobeat to techno. There’s also daytime revelry, which kicked off with a Solstice Day Rave on June 21. The club currently operates with a 1am curfew.
But that isn’t all. Coven is also open in the daytime, when it operates as a cafe and community hub complete with coffee tables and chairs for those who want somewhere to work. ‘So many queer people are creatives – we end up working from home and being in a bit of a vacuum,’ said Morgan. ‘Giving people the option to be in a community and have somewhere they can go during the day is really exciting.’ A tarot reader also works the space from 5pm until close, doing back-to-back readings and doubling as the toilet attendant.
Coven opens at a tense moment for Soho nightlife. Last month, residents group Soho Society voted at its AGM to oppose new bar and restaurant licence applications in the neighbourhood, including renewals and anything that wants to stay open past the 11pm curfew. Mayor Sadiq Khan called the move ‘bad for London’ and said new licensing powers could be used to overrule local objections.
That said, it seems Coven has cast a charm offensive on the locals, as the neighbourhood group is totally on board. ‘The Soho Society has been extremely supportive of me,’ Morgan told Time Out.
‘Before the contract was even sorted, they invited me to their executive committee meeting. They said they found it very sad that so many queer spaces have closed and feel like the community doesn’t come to the area as much anymore.’
Coven: Headquarters, 30 Old Compton St, W1D 4UR.
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