Ask anyone on the Birmingham scene where the night tends to end up, and sooner or later someone says Gale's. The Nightingale Club — the Gale, to most of the people who actually go — is the city's largest and longest-running LGBTQ+ venue, a sprawling, multi-room club just off Hurst Street on Kent Street, and a fixture of queer Birmingham for decades. It's built for a big night. Several rooms with several soundtracks — pop in one, something harder in the next — across a space that holds around 2,000, filling with everyone from first-timers on their first scene night out to regulars who've been coming since the eighties. Drag, cabaret and live performance share the bill with the DJs, so there's usually a show on as well as a dancefloor. It's a proper club, not a bar — come for the late one, not the quiet pint. What to expect: Multi-room club, ~2,000 capacity · cocktails, beer and wine · live music and drag · outdoor seating · works for big groups and for going solo. Nights & opening hours: Main nights Thursdays and Saturdays, 10pm–4am, plus one-off events and Pride parties. Getting there: 18 Kent Street, B5 6RD — a short walk from Hurst Street and the Gay Village, near the Hippodrome and city centre. Accessibility: Wheelchair-accessible restroom listed; access info via Google — confirm with the venue.
Upcoming Events
What You'll Find
Accessibility (via Google)
- Wheelchair accessible restroom
Accessibility data from Google. If anything's wrong, let us know.
Photos via Google · By Emperor, Daniel D. Reimer, Lucie Jayne Bates, Angie “Dontpaniciamrealist” Pam, Giovanni Stanco, Zed Nott
Reviews
Drew Wakefield-Pearce
A sad sad experience. We left after 40 minutes. We went on a Saturday when it should have been and used to be packed . We've not been in years and it takes you to the middle floor now which had about 5 people there. Top floor is a bit better but nothing like the old gale. Not even sure how to get to the new 'village' that's been moved here and we didn't bother. Whole place needs a total overhaul to bring it back to days of old or just close it down and leave us with our memories. RIP Hurst street
3 months ago
S E
Update 23/08/26 - I made complaint directly to the management about this incident, management dealt with it well, I hadn’t returned in almost a year yet when I spoke to security manager he was aware of the incident that’d happened so long ago so clearly Terry the managing director had taken the issue very seriously and re trained staff! Thanks for an amazing night, I’d recommend again :) Attended Halloween 2025 night in drag, got called disgusting by some women which my partner & I reported to security. security did not remove them, instead spoke to them for 20-30 seconds and let them come back to us to start going “next time keep your gob shut”. I will not be attending this venue again as it is clearly not a safe space, I expected a lot better from security given that it’s an LGBTQ venue but after telling my friends about the incident it seems this is a reoccurring theme at nightingales/village. I have reported the issue to the club with hopes that security can be properly trained but as of yet management have not emailed back.
2 months ago
Lea Lukacs
The less than pleasant experience started before I got there. The website has absolutely no information, their email address does not work and while they read their messages on social media, they do not respond to any of them. I managed to find out via other attendees that the performance I was interested was at 1am but I was ready to have a fun night it so it was no problem. Got there a couple of minutes before 10pm then everyone was kicked out to queue up again. They took us to a completely different room upstairs and then a couple of hours later let us downstairs again to the 'main' room. No matter who I asked in the venue, no one seemed to have any information whatsoever which just felt weird considering they all worked there. The lack of communication from staff really created a confusing night but the performers were great which made things much better.
4 years ago
More of the Gay Village
The Nightingale Club is one of Birmingham's LGBTQ+ venues. See every gay bar in Birmingham, or read up on the Gay Village itself.
