With his background in community development, Burck quickly got involved with the organization level of the events.
“It just didn’t compute with my image of South Bend.” “Two hundred-plus people going to an event,” he says.
Most of the events have a place for dancing, as well as a place for people to relax and socialize.Īdam Burck, who moved from Chicago to the area about a year ago, says he was searching for an active gay network locally. The events are normally held the second Saturday of the month, but sometimes switch to a different weekend during football season or if there’s another big event that day.Īlthough there were and are LGBT-welcoming bars in town, Wetherall says GGB fills a niche that people wanted but didn’t find in the area - an upscale, nonsmoking socialization environment. In March, they’ll head to Main Street Grille in Mishawaka. This Saturday, GGB is taking over the gym at Madison Center with an ’80s-themed dance party, with attendees encouraged to wear their favorite Lycra, Day-Glo and tennis shoes to dance in. Now they have to get a little creative with their locations, so they can host the crowd size. They’ve grown out of a lot of their initial venues, Wetherall says. “The fact that we have something that attractive for people to drive that distance says a lot about what we’re doing,” she says. The events draw folks from cities and towns around the area, but also regionally, with people driving in from Chicago, Grand Rapids and Indianapolis to come to the parties. It was a respectable size, organizer Willow Wetherall says, but it was small compared to the 200-plus crowd the event attracts now, three years later. In December 2012, 40 people attended the first Guerrilla Gay Bar event in South Bend. Editor's note: The February Guerrilla Gay Bar event was changed from Feb.