City to Co-Host Go-Go Dancer Appreciation Festival

The following is a press release from the City of West Hollywood. 

The City of West Hollywood will Saturday co-host the 2nd Annual Go-Go Dancer Appreciation Festival by holding a Go-Go Dancer Competition and Street Party on Larrabee Street near Santa Monica Boulevard between Eleven and Micky’s.

The festival opens at 7:30 p.m., followed by the pre-competition show at 8:30 p.m., the Go-Go competition at 9 p.m., and the after-party at Micky’s at 10:30 p.m.

The Go-Go Appreciation Festival and street party will offer guests a diverse array of Go-Go dancers including Ricardo Ferrise, Joel Creenwood, Colby Melvin, Quinn Jaxon, Gregg McKeon, Jay Diamond, Volodymyr Shmycol, Israel Zamora, Alejandro Naranjo, Dan Lovell, Shawn Stanfield, Hugo Bautista, Carl Hinton and Luke Allen.

Derek Monteiro will DJ the festival and street party, and Billy Francesca will MC. Go-Go Dancer Appreciation Festival judges include Dominick Munafo, winner of Go-Go Fest 2011 and Jonny McGovern, stand-up comedian, musician and podcaster also known as the Gay Pimp, among others. 

Frontiers Magazine is partnering with the city for this year's festival

Frontiers has launched a competition at FrontiersLA.com for readers to vote for their favorite L.A.—area gogo dancer. The seven finalists who receive the most votes will move on to perform live at the festival.

The eight judges and live audience will choose the winner and runner-up. The dancer with the most votes wins a trip to Palm Springs, a one-year membership to Gold's Gym, $1,000 cash and the opportunity to grace the cover of Frontier Magazine. 

The City of West Hollywood has a long history of being on the cutting edge of new artistic and musical endeavors. The Whisky A Go-Go, the first live music venue and the only surviving one to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, opened its doors in 1964 and soon after launched a trend that would ultimately become the norm in clubs all over the world by suspending cages with Go-Go dancers from the ceiling of the club.

In the mid-1960s and the 1970s, the Sunset Strip became a major center for the counterculture as Go-Go dancers did their thing at the Whisky and other clubs along the Strip. In 1968, the first Groovy Guy contest was started as a marketing tool for the then newly-formed Advocate magazine and as a way to unite the Los Angeles gay community. 

By 1970, the contest had become so famous that The Advocate featured a Groovy Guy float in the first gay pride parade down Hollywood Boulevard and that summer’s contest was held at Ciro’s Restaurant (now The Comedy Store). The Groovy Guy contest ran in one form or another through 1991.

By the early 1970’s both the female and male Go-Go dancing phenomenon was part of West Hollywood culture and dancers have been appreciated on stages big and small at clubs across the City ever since.

Gold’s Gym, Spunklube, GuySpy.com, Eleven, Revolver, Trunks, Fiesta Cantina and Micky’s nightclubs are also sponsors of the 2nd Annual Go-Go Appreciation Festival.

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