Gay Bars in Brighton: Kemptown, the Seafront & Beyond
Brighton's gay bars and clubs by area: the Kemptown village around St James's Street, Revenge on Old Steine, Sunday cabaret on the seafront at Legends, and drag on Western Street by the Hove border.
BrightonGay Events
Drag brunches, circuit nights & every party worth knowing in Brighton — in your inbox every week.
Brighton's Gay Bar Scene at a Glance
Brighton's gay scene is compact, and almost all of it sits in Kemptown. St James's Street is the spine of the village, with George Street, Broad Street, Steine Street and Camelford Street running off it, and Old Steine, Marine Parade and Grand Parade framing the edges. Drag is everywhere: nearly every bar on this list runs cabaret on at least one night of the week. The one regular outlier is the Grosvenor Bar on Western Street, over on the Hove border.
- For your first night in the village: The Queens Arms, Zone Bar, The Bulldog, Affinity Bar
- For a dance floor: Revenge, the Basement Club at Legends
- For drag and cabaret: The Queens Arms, Marine Tavern, Bar Broadway, Legends' Sunday cabaret, The Grosvenor Bar
- For bears and cruise bars: The Camelford Arms, Brighton Cruise Bar, The Bulldog's fetish nights
- For a seafront drink: Legends
- For a neighbourhood local: Marine Tavern, The Camelford Arms
See all Brighton venues on Out x Out →
Kemptown: St James's Street and the Seafront
St James's Street runs east from Old Steine, and the side streets drop down towards Marine Parade and the sea. The bars sit close enough to try three in an hour.
Revenge
Revenge, which bills itself as the South Coast's number one LGBTQ+ nightclub, has been running on Old Steine since 1991, a block from St James's Street and a short walk from the Palace Pier. It's three floors: a big main room with LED screens and themed VIP booths, a second dance floor built like an LED tunnel with dancing cages, and a roof terrace looking out over the city and the pier.
It opens at 11pm on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays, and each night has its own crowd. Monday is ROAR (emo, pop-punk, metal and indie), Thursday is Fruity, the student night, Friday is Camp Out (pop from the 90s to now), and Saturday is Confession, with pop and dance on one floor and R&B on the other. Out Out!, a 25+ night with live acts and drag, launched there in January 2026.
Revenge calls itself a queer safe space first: straight friends are welcome, but the club asks allies to buy ally tickets. The building is old with a lot of stairs, so check its accessibility page if that matters.
The Queens Arms
The pink pub on George Street, just off St James's Street, and a long-running gay pub. Inside it's all pink and glitter, and people come for the drag: cabaret runs through the week, with karaoke nights in the mix. At Pride the pub has put a cabaret stage out on George Street. An easy first stop, with the rest of the village a couple of minutes away.
Legends
A Gay Friendly seafront hotel, bar and club in one building on Marine Parade, looking straight out to sea from the edge of Kemptown. The bar has wide windows and a big terrace, serves food through the day and does a Sunday roast. Its Sunday cabaret at 3.30pm is the fixture locals know it for, with names like Davina Sparkle and Miss Jason on the bill alongside newer acts.
Downstairs, the Basement Club picks up after the bar, with resident nights including Fusion on Saturdays with DJ Peter Castle, Glitter on Sunday evenings with DJ Patch, and Fever, a 70s and 80s disco on the last Thursday of the month. Legends opens at 10am daily and runs to 3am, or 4am Friday to Sunday.
Affinity Bar
A small cocktail bar at the Old Steine end of St James's Street with a full week of entertainment: drag on Saturday nights with lip-syncs and dancing, cabaret bingo with two-for-one cocktails before 9pm, pop anthems nights with resident DJs, and its own trivia. It opens at midday every day and runs to midnight, so it works as an afternoon drink as well as a night stop.
The Bulldog
A gay bar on St James's Street that press reports date to 1979. It closed in 2022 and is trading again under a line that calls it Brighton's longest running LGBTQ venue. The headline events now are a midnight cabaret on Fridays and a run of fetish nights; check its What's On page or socials for which ones are coming up. It's next door to Zone Bar, right in the middle of the strip.
Marine Tavern
A tiny, gay-owned pub on Broad Street, the short lane between St James's Street and the seafront. It calls itself possibly Brighton's smallest pub, and it plays like a local: come in alone and you'll end up chatting with the bar team and whoever's next to you. Drag queens play five nights a week (Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday and Sunday) and the pub raises money year-round for local causes.
Bar Broadway
A musical theatre bar on Steine Street, tucked just off St James's Street. Show tunes play on a big screen, with cabaret on Friday and Saturday nights, karaoke nights and a bottomless drag brunch on most Saturdays, run by Boozy Brunch Club. It first opened on the eve of Pride in 2014 and is trading again after a closure, and it's the pick if you'd rather sing along than dance. Revenge is a minute away.
The Camelford Arms
A pub on Camelford Street, a side street running from St James's Street down towards the sea. It calls itself a community pub and doesn't bill itself as a gay bar, but gay guides have long listed it as a bear bar, with a relaxed, mixed crowd that skews older. Thursday's pub quiz has a top prize of up to £300 and is popular, so booking is recommended. There's live music on Sundays at 5pm and a Moroccan-style garden out back.
Zone Bar
A small bar looking out onto St James's Street in the middle of the village, next to the Bulldog. Weekends are for cabaret and live music, with local drag acts on Friday and Saturday nights; weekdays run to bingo and karaoke.
Brighton Cruise Bar
A men-only bar on Grand Parade, at the same address as the Brighton Sauna. It works as a private members' bar, but membership is free and you can sign up online before you go. It's open weekends only: Friday and Saturday from 7pm to 4am, and Sunday from 3pm. The late finish makes it an end-of-night option.
Pro Tip
The Kemptown bars are small, and show nights fill early. Affinity takes table bookings online, which is worth doing for its weekend shows, and booking is recommended for the Camelford Arms quiz on Thursdays. Start at the pubs, then head to Revenge or the Basement Club at Legends once they get going.
Western Street, on the Hove Border
The Grosvenor Bar
The one bar on this list well away from the Kemptown strip, on Western Street right on the Brighton and Hove border. It's a refurbished local, and its own line is that it's proud to be an LGBTQ+ bar but open to everyone. Drag is the draw: drag bingo every Thursday at 8pm and drag cabaret on Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Handy if you're staying on the western side of the city.
Brighton's Gay Saunas
Brighton has two men's saunas on Out x Out. The Brighton Sauna is on Grand Parade, a few minutes' walk from St James's Street, and runs straight through from Friday at noon to Sunday night. The Boiler Room is on Denmark Villas in Hove, on the western side of the city, with themed Friday nights. Both have their own page:
Where to Stay
Kemptown puts you within walking distance of every bar above except the Grosvenor. Legends has hotel rooms above the bar and club, from singles and compact doubles to superiors with sea views, if you want to go from the terrace to bed without a taxi. Three more options sit nearby.
New Steine Hotel
A gay-owned boutique hotel and bistro on New Steine, a Georgian square that opens onto the seafront in Kemptown. The hotel says it has been gay-run for more than two decades and is happy to point guests to the village bars, a few minutes' walk away.
Amsterdam Hotel
A seafront hotel on Marine Parade, opposite the Palace Pier, with a bar and restaurant open to non-guests. It has 24 rooms, from singles to sea-view doubles and a penthouse suite. The hotel describes itself as being in the heart of the LGBT community, and St James's Street is a few minutes' walk up the hill.
Brightonwave
A small guesthouse on Madeira Place, a side street running up from Marine Parade into Kemptown, with eight en-suite rooms, mostly doubles and super kings. The beach is a couple of minutes down the road and the St James's Street bars a short walk up.
Getting Around
Pro Tip
You won't need transport for a night in Kemptown. St James's Street, George Street, Broad Street, Steine Street, Camelford Street, Old Steine, Grand Parade and Marine Parade are all within a few minutes' walk of each other, so you can move between Revenge, the village pubs, Legends on the seafront and the Grand Parade cruise bar on foot. The Grosvenor Bar on Western Street and the Boiler Room in Hove are on the other side of the city, so treat them as a separate night.
FAQ
Where is the gay area in Brighton?
Kemptown. The village runs along St James's Street and the side streets off it, from Old Steine to the seafront at Marine Parade, and almost every gay bar in Brighton is within a few minutes' walk of it. The Grosvenor Bar on Western Street, by the Hove border, is the main exception.
Is there a gay club in Brighton?
Revenge on Old Steine is the big one: three floors and a roof terrace, open from 11pm on Mondays, Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Legends on Marine Parade also has the Basement Club downstairs, with resident nights through the weekend.
Which Brighton gay bars stay open late?
Legends runs to 3am on weeknights and 4am Friday to Sunday, Revenge opens at 11pm and goes late on its club nights, and Brighton Cruise Bar runs to 4am on Fridays and Saturdays. Most of the smaller Kemptown bars, such as Affinity, close around midnight.
Where can I see drag in Brighton?
The Queens Arms runs cabaret through the week, Marine Tavern has drag five nights a week, Legends has Sunday cabaret at 3.30pm, Bar Broadway hosts a Saturday drag brunch, and the Grosvenor Bar runs drag bingo on Thursdays and cabaret Friday to Sunday.
Are there gay saunas in Brighton?
Yes, two. The Brighton Sauna is on Grand Parade in Kemptown, and the Boiler Room is on Denmark Villas in Hove. Both are for men; see our Brighton saunas page for details.
Enjoyed this article?
Subscribe to our newsletter for more LGBTQ+ travel guides, local discoveries, and community stories delivered to your inbox.
Subscribe to Newsletter
Robbie S.
I'm Robbie, the founder of Out x Out. I'm from Minneapolis, though I'm spending 2026 building this community from the road — somewhere between South America and Asia. The idea for Out x Out came from a trip to Berlin, where the gay nightlife calendar was years ahead of ours: you could see not just where to go out, but which night to go — so naturally I wanted that kind of insider info for every city in the US (and beyond... eventually). I'm more of a behind-the-scenes type, but the whole point of this is connection: I'd take one real one over a hundred surface-level ones, and I'm trying to build that for the community, city by city.
Related Posts
Brighton Pride 2027: Parade, Pride on the Park, Street Party & Where to Stay
Brighton & Hove Pride takes over the city on the first weekend of August: a Saturday community parade from Hove Lawns to Preston Park, two days of Pride on the Park, a street party on Marine Parade, and Kemptown's bars running all weekend.
Gay Bars in Belfast: The Cathedral Quarter Guide
Belfast's gay bars, street by street: Union Street Bar and The Maverick on Union Street, Kremlin and Boombox on Donegall Street, and Outside Sauna on Donegall Lane, all in the Cathedral Quarter.
Gay Bars in Birmingham: Hurst Street & the Gay Village
Birmingham's gay bars street by street: the Hurst Street bars and late club, Missing on Bromsgrove Street, the Nightingale and the Village Inn on Kent Street, the pubs on the Village's edges, and where to stay.