Glyn Fussell is uncharacteristically struggling for words. “I feel…” he begins, and then stutters to a stop. “Sorry.”
For Fussell, who in 2008 co-founded the Sink the Pink parties with best friend Amy Redmond, this is an emotional moment. Next month, time is called on a project that has consumed the past 14 years of his life. “I feel a bit crazy about it,” he says. “It’s been everything. It became my baby… I suppose I can only compare it to a parent with a child going to college. I’m excited because it’s the next chapter, but I’m terrified too.”
The final wind down will be marked with the Sink the Pink Farewell Ball on April 15, when some 6,000 or so fans head to Printworks to pay tribute to the parties that changed London forever. “When we did our announcement, there was quite a lot of shock but I think everyone sensed it was the way it is at any party — you want to leave when it’s still good,” says Redmond.
End of an era barely scratches the surface. Fusell says: “I’ve said ‘Sink the Pink’ more than I’ve said my own name over the last decade and a half.” The parties — LGBTQ+ focussed, but adamantly welcoming to all — have taken him across the globe, from New York to Berlin, and onto stages with Years & Years, Mel C and Little Mix. “We’ve done some mind-blowing things,” he remembers. “When we got booked to play Pride at São Paulo it was almost like I was watching myself from above. There were four million people there and at the time, Brazilian homosexuals were having their rights taken away from them. Going through that crowd on this enormous float, there was just this amazing, amazing exchange of energy. It was a flooring kind of energy. You got hit with it. I’ll never forget that. I remember looking at the other queens just before we went out and just all of us bursting into tears. Mel C had to check we were all OK!”
Performing for four million pride fans, though, was never in the original plan. “That’s what’s so crazy,” says Redmond. “We started it to be the opposite of a mega club — because I didn’t feel at ease in those ‘mega’ spaces.”
The first Sink the Pink followed a “particularly grim” night out for the pair, but it followed too long heading out in town and ending up disappointed. Redmond, who calls herself “straight-ish”, says: “We’d have such fun at our house parties but nightclubs seemed so exclusionary, and there wasn’t much fun there. Without going too much into it, I’m a survivor and didn’t always feel safe in hetero spaces, though I still wanted to snog men. And Glyn didn’t always want to just be in places for gay men. So one night we wrote this list of what a dream night out would look like and then, well, we just sort of did it. People talk about ‘manifesting’ now — we were just making things happen.”
Starting off with two shows in a tiny bar in Islington, before making its name as a monthly bash at the Bethnal Green Working Men’s Club, those dream nights were built around unashamedly cheesy pop bangers, drag queens and an endless supply of glitter. “We were wild little show-offs,” chuckles Redmond. Word-of-mouth meant the nights quickly drew crowds as it became clear their formula was a dream shared all across town.
“Even though we’ve always been at the forefront of things, like celebrating those who are trans or non-binary, we’ve always been a night for everybody,” says Fussell. “I think our intentions have always been good. We’ve just wanted to bring people together. We’ve never been a night about being sexy — there’s a playfulness to it, a childlike innocence. It’s escapism, you know?”
As the months turned to years, this all-is-welcome approach earned the parties some big-name fans, from Adam Garcia and Henry Holland to Beverley Knight, Sophie Ellis-Bextor and Daisy Lowe. Little Mix’s Jade Thirlwall is another; gigs with the band followed (as did a music video for Bounce Back), which Fussell says “changed our lane”.
It is perhaps a humble way to put it. Sink the Pink’s open door policy helped normalise LGBTQ-leaning nights across London at a time when it was yet to make it to the mainstream.
“You have to step away to see what we did, how we were a part of influencing culture,” is how Redmond puts it. “There are moments when it’s very surreal. None of that was the original intention but you see the ripple effect of having been in the mainstream. I mean, I watched Saturday Night Takeaway last month and Ant and Dec were performing with RuPaul’s queens. On mainstream British TV! It was incredible.”
I hadn’t found my place, my people. But Sink the Pink was a vehicle for change for me and so many others
Fussell recalls similar astonishment when the STP troupe made it onto Graham Norton “on New Year’s Eve, and I remember thinking — what if a family is watching? What is this going to do? That’s visibility!” Unlike Redmond, though, there’s a sense Fussell was always working towards something like this: “I’ve never stopped pushing to get us in front of the public eye. It’s been f***ing hard but if I’m told no, I just try 10 times harder.”
The pair have long characterised their relationship as “the parents of Sink the Pink”. Redmond took care of staff, ensuring everyone was paid on time, while Fussell, she says, “is like Cher in Vegas. He has all these brilliant visions”.
Fussell’s next vision is a Sink the Pink book, which he wrote during the pandemic — he says it was the only time since 2008 that there was time to stop, think and reflect. It will burst with lessons from the parties, “because otherwise, who else is going to pass it on?” His title? Manifesto for Misfits. “It’s like me guiding someone onto the dancefloor and transforming their lives,” he laughs.
For both, 14 years seems like a long time ago. “I was quite a scared human,” says Fussell of then, perhaps surprisingly. “I was always acting, pretending, playing a role. I hadn’t found my place, my people. But Sink the Pink was a vehicle for change for me and so many others that way. And I think we’ve managed to give that to people, to reposition how people think, by combating those fears head on. We’ve been a playground for rebellion and a place to come together. And that’s my personal favourite thing, the thing I’m proudest of more than anything.”
The Farewell Ball will pay tribute to that feeling, he says. “It’s going to be a real retrospective because for the first time, we’re not looking forward, we can look back. We’re going to have some of our biggest names with us, but take it right back to the Working Men’s days. It’s going to be a mind f***. It’s going to be amazing!” Redmond says it’ll be “the best night of my life”.
Rehearsals have started but there are hints this won’t quite be the end of Sink the Pink. Besides Fussell’s book, Redmond says calling time now “leaves the door open for a 10-year anniversary or something.” Besides, she adds: “There’s life in the old girl yet. This is in our system, it’s in our DNA. If you cut us, we’ll always bleed Sink the Pink.”
Sink The Pink Farewell Ball, April 15, printworkslondon.co.uk
