February 11th, 2011:
Results of the big Reguliersdwarsstraat-survey
This is a summary of some of the most important and striking results of the survey Going Out in Reguliersdwarsstraat,
which was held from November 15th to December 15th, 2010:
- People mainly go out on Reguliersdwarsstraat’s due to its open and accessible nature, beautiful men, the hip gay venues and the international character of the street.
- Almost 49% of respondents lost their favorite nightspot due to the closing of the big gay venues.
- No less than 92% of respondents would like these venues to open again as quickly as possible, or rather, that an entirely new venue will be opened.
- 75% thinks Amsterdam currently lacks a good gay club. A majority of 59% would prefer to see a whole new gay nightclub opening its doors. 19% would prefer to reopen Club Exit.
- Although three quarters of respondents now dub the street "past glory", 57% still feel that Amsterdam won’t be a Gay Capital without Reguliersdwarsstraat.
- The visitors especially want innovation and diversity: different music styles and interior design, a varied audience, and a trendy coffee bar and places to sit and enjoy a drink outside during the day would make the street more attractive.
- Concrete annoyances were particularly the high prices, a lack of customer service and competition, as well as having to pay for the toilet. The smoking ban and safety issues on the streets were only mentioned by 12% and 18% respectively.
- 88% of the visitors came primarily to Reguliersdwarsstraat for the beautiful and trendy gay venues, such as April, Soho, ARC and Exit.
- Most favorite gay venue is April 41%, followed by Soho, ARC, disco Exit and the Exit Cafe. The former Havana (1989-2002) is still the favorite venue of 23% of the people.
- Going out in Reguliersdwarsstraat is primarily a social event: people who go there, like those who go elsewhere, do so mainly because their friends go there.
- Visitors to the Reguliersdwarsstraat appeared to be relatively well educated: 65% have a college or higher degree. 57% came from outside Amsterdam to go out there and almost two thirds are between 16 and 35 years old.
- For 75% of the respondents the first gay bar they ever visited was one on Reguliersdwarsstraat.
- The survey shows that 47% used to come once a week or more to Reguliersdwarsstraat, more than 3% even says they used to come every day. Nowadays only 5% comes every week and 44% rarely or never.
- 36% of the visitors consider Reguliersdwarsstraat less safe than a few years ago, but still almost 74% of the visitors here never had any problems in the street.
- The main causes for the decline of the street mentioned are too little innovation (60%) and the bad policies of the now closed Kooistra bars (68%).
The results of the big Reguliersdwarsstraat-Survey were presented on Friday, February 11th to Caroline Gehrels,
alderperson of Amsterdam, by Vera Bergkamp (D66) and Peter Koop (Reguliers.net).
This presentation was held in front of the still closed gay cafe April, which was voted the most popular gay of the street:
Presentation of the survey results in front of gay cafe April
(photo: Marius Bakker / Reguliers.net)
> The full survey report in Dutch:
Uitgaan in de Reguliersdwarsstraat (pdf)
- Report of the local TV-station: AT5.nl
> Index van nieuwsberichten
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