Dan Prance talks to QX about celebrating 10 years of BEEFMINCE and the huge parties lined up for May and June ’25

The next couple of months are going to be fun for the party boys at BEEFMINCE. QX got to find out more!

So, 10 years of BEEFMINCE! Has anything changed since you first started?

It’s been a crazy ride, for sure. The London scene was very different in 2015, when we came along with the idea that bear clubbing can be fun, whether you want to celebrate masculinity or the sheer campiness of being a proud homo. They came for the BEEF but stayed for the MINCE!

How are you planning to celebrate a decade of mincing?

We are doing something we have never done before: your daytime beach fantasy right in the centre of London! We are bringing the hottest bear party OUTDOORS for the ultimate summer bash: BEACHMINCE! We promise you this will not be an average day at the beach – expect big bears, small speedos, a BBQ, a REAL sandy beach, 14 DJs, a HUGE dance tent, VIP beach huts, photo booth, gay market stalls, outdoor games! We are going all out for this one!

Sounds spectacular… You seem to be really growing your parties over the last few years. Tell us more about this fabulous expansion of BEEFMINCE.

We have been around for a decade with a legendary residency at the Royal Vauxhall Tavern, our spiritual home. We wanted to host bigger events so we landed at The Clapham Grand where we have been throwing Big Balls since Easter 2023 – these parties are a lot of fun, our next one is the Bank Holiday Sunday 25 May. And let’s not forget our epic annual boat parties – we just had our 9th one at the start of May.

This year you are also throwing huge events at The Steel Yard!

Bear clubbing under the arches is legendary, isn’t it? Hehe. Every venue we work with offers something different: the RVT is intimate, fun, and so full of memories, and the Grand is a spectacular Victorian theatre that creates a special and celebratory atmosphere. The Steel Yard brings different things to the table – for the first time we can have a BEEF room (house and techno) and a MINCE room (pop and dance) as well as our chillout space “Head Upstairs” and a central location. We are back at the Steel Yard on Saturday, 7 June.

We love discovering venues we have not worked in before and roaming the party. It creates options and caters for many tastes and preferences. We might have more up our sleeve…

But you have not stopped in London, BEEFMINCE has gone national, hasn’t it?

We have! Brighton was the obvious next step. We are so lucky to have landed in Concorde2, a perfect venue for BEEFMINCE and with an ah-mazing sound system. We had a fabulous launch in March and we are back on Saturday, 12 July, as part of Brighton Bear Weekend, plus a special Sunday daytime party for Brighton Pride (after our appearance in the park on the Saturday). 

Then, our latest venture was at Birmingham’s legendary venue, Eden Bar; it just reopened in its third incarnation, on the edge of the village. We LOVE the new venue, we had a really strong launch in April and existed to be back on Saturday 14 June!

You guys are smashing it! What keeps you going?

It’s so important to continue having inclusive spaces where our community can come together and socialise, meet each other face to face, make friends and connect outside of the online world. The gay pubs and clubs are where societal change happened before and where we believe it will happen again. At a time when both in the UK and internationally the LBGTQ+ community is being attacked and our rights are being taken away, we need to come together, march in Prides and demonstrations, have power in numbers, embrace our trans siblings and show we are still here, still queer and still mincing.