07/01/2024
To our friends, loved ones, and greater Spectrum community:
(TL;DR: Spectrum will be closed as of August 12. THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU. We truly believe we chipped away at making the world a better place, We look forward to what’s coming next for Eugene!)
The time has come for us to announce we will be closing Spectrum. Our last projected day of operation is August 11, the day after the Eugene Pride Festival. We are incredibly proud and grateful for the last six and a half years of operation but the time has come to move on.
Six and a half years ago, I was performing in monthly burlesque shows in the venue that came before us, when an announcement came on a Monday night that the bar would be closing six days later. Like so many others, I was devastated. That bar had given me the opportunity for self-exploration that cemented my identity as Q***r, instead of just a closeted nonbinary pansexual, clinging to my illusion of being cis or straight because I was too afraid to be myself.
I didn’t have any restaurant experience. I was working as a clinical sexologist and writer, but I had taken some business management classes at LCC and nonprofit management at UO and I had produced events sporadically in the last ten years. I was completely unprepared to open a bar in so many different ways, but I trusted my friendships and my community and I took a leap.
I opened Spectrum by myself, as a single-owner LLC, because it was the fastest way I could figure out to just get a space operating. I had always hoped that within a few years, I would be able to transfer ownership, or partner with the community, to create a nonprofit that would manage the space. I just saw an opportunity for me to open a venue and get some forward movement. It was my puzzle piece, my contribution to a community that needed so many other puzzle pieces to be held together.
I am very happy to be able to tell you that for the last several months, an inter-agency leadership council of multiple nonprofits, along with an advisory committee made up of diverse individuals from the community, empowered with a grant from Trillium, has been working to open a Q***r Resource Center (QRC) in Eugene by the end of 2024! The community center would provide services like mental health counseling, access to gender affirming care, opportunities for performing arts, youth classes, clothing exchanges, an events space and more. There are a lot of hopes for the QRC and although we are not yet sure *exactly* how or where it will operate, there have been months of work on developing this project already, and it is going to be a total gamechanger for the community.
So it is with enormous pride in what we have achieved that I have made the decision to close Spectrum. I know that even a QRC won’t entirely replace the niche that we filled for the community but it has been a very difficult six and a half years, filled with endless challenges and frustrations. To open a social space for a community that is almost universally traumatized just by existing within this spacetime is inherently fraught. For years we have been proud to hold this space for q***r joy, even when it meant being patient with a backlash of pain and anger.
Opening and managing Spectrum will always be one of the greatest achievements of my life. We even won Best Bar (2022/2023) in the Eugene Weekly readers’ poll! I am endlessly proud of the thousands of productions we had, the performers who found their footing here, the all-ages events, the clothing swaps, and the free meals C.O.R.E. served from our building. People met new lovers at Spectrum and kissed for the first time on the dance floor. People got engaged at Spectrum. We hosted baby showers, birthday parties and engagement parties. Nonprofit boards held meetings to work to legalize psilocybin and at least one PhD thesis was written from the comfort of our low-stimulus salon. We had life drawing sessions with gender q***r models, crafting nights and gayming nights. We had gatherings like pansexual speed dating, asexual social hour, bear nights and le***an dance parties.
As the youngest of six kids; an intersex, nonbinary, pansexual person in an often mislabeled-as-hetero relationship; one of my driving forces behind creating Spectrum was to try to build a space where no LGBTQIA2S+ person felt excluded. My goal was that everybody who *wanted* to be a part of Spectrum would find a way to fit there, and that along the way, we would empower nice people and limit petty, mean-girl behavior. We were never perfect but we did try.
Thousands of you saw what we were offering and lent your support along the way.
To anybody who ever stopped by for an afternoon drink, even if it was just a glass of water, thank you. To people who attended events and tipped your performers, thank you. To the producers who worked so hard to make so many wonderful parties for all of the greater Eugene community, all of the employees who woke up early and stayed up late, the bartenders who listened to your frustrations about the day, thank you endlessly.
I may be known for hyperbole but I truly, honestly believe that we made the world a better place together.
Thank you from the bottom of my heart and we will see you around for the next six weeks. Make sure to come back in July; our photo booth is getting taken away before August!
With love and respect,
Captain Heldog
