Year in Review: Looking Back on a Big Gay 2016

We kicked off the New Year with 2016’s first installment of The Meet Market, BGHV’s pop-up night out series, at Canvas in Downtown Poughkeepsie. Vintage vinyl beats, served up by Ulster County’s DJSquirrelsuit and DJ3dg, kept the packed house dancing long into the night.

It was all about quick wits and clever double entendres as Hudson’s Trixie Starr hosted her own raucous version of the classic 70’s game show, The Match Game. The answers of a couple eager contestants were pitted against the Meet Market audience to see how they stacked up. Did you make a match? You won a prize! No such luck? You won the inevitably less fabulous consolation prize! Accompanying Trixie was the fabulous cabaret chanteuse, Ophelia Nightly, singing some of her very best noir nightclub ballads.

Great jumping catfish! Someone snatched Lady Dubois’ cherished family jewels! Never fear, stripper sleuths Nasty Drew and That Harder Boy were on the case. Audiences watched with anticipation as they hunted for clues, warded off menacing suspects and loosened up a few buttons of their own on their search to find the dastardly diamond deviant. The “whodunit” play with burlesque, circus & drag performances played a three city tour in Poughkeepsie, Rosendale and Hudson.

Pool + beats + BYOB = spectacular big gay fun in the sun. We soaked up some fab summer vibes poolside at St. Hubert’s Lodge in Marlboro in July and with a tea dance at Marlboro’s Perch in August.

Bluegrass, burgers, Barnyard Match Game and a few haaayrides took over Poughkeepsie’s Sprout Creek Farm for our third annual Out on the Farm. This one had it all: tons of flannel, perfect fall foliage, live music, family-friendly farm tours and a bonfire (complete with s’mores, obviously).

BGHV’s fourth annual holiday burlesque spectacular, HUNG With Care, expanded to a two-city production this year with shows in Rosendale and Poughkeepsie. Seven of NYC’s premier faces in nightlife (six performers plus an emcee) took the theme of The Twelve Days of XMas and recreated their own plucky renditions of the classic carol’s dozen days of giving.