RAINBOW Project: Rome Edition - Interview with Diego Longobardi, Creative Director & Event Manager

Diego: Ciao HolidayPirates! My name is Diego Longobardi, I am the artistic director of the most famous LGBTQ+ night in Rome, Muccassassina. Also, I direct the Roma Pride events every year. Right now we are in the most famous queer bar on the Gay Street of Rome, the Via di San Giovanni in Laterano. It’s the world’s Gay Street with the most beautiful view I would say - where else can you drink your Apperol while looking at the Colosseum?! Other than the Coming Out bar there are four other queer bars located on this street. Here is where all the queer people meet in Rome. Many tourists think there are no queer spaces in Rome since it’s such a religious city… But we do have some venues and great parties, including Muccassassina, which happens every friday night. We always have international performers, drag shows and a very mixed crowd. Some of the Drag Queens of RuPaul’s Drag Race Italy started their careers at Muccassassina, so it’s high quality performances only! We are cis-straight friendly, meaning that also cis-straight people can come celebrate with us as long as they are respectful towards the performances and the crowd. Other than that, on Wednesdays the best venue to visit is called Glamorize. On Thursdays the main gay meeting point are the many saunas we have around the city… every day there is somewhere to go where you can celebrate with a nice crowd if queer people. You just arrived from Milan, right?

Diego: Right! A lot of Balenciaga, Gucci, Armani… Well in Rome there’s less fashion, less attitude, but more action. This is the queer struggle between Milan and Roma… Here, the bars are more spread around town. It’s not like in Milan, where you have a huge concentration of queer and LGBTQ+ bars in the Porta Venezia district. Something that not many people know though is that in 30 minutes, you can take a train from the main station and arrive at the beach. We have a huge gay beach near here named Il Buco. And almost nobody knows about it! There is a natural reserve, it’s a sand beach and this is very, very nice in the summer. A lot of tourists don't know about that. And it’s not the only beach, we have three other beaches near Il Buco. There is a nudist beach there, one for lesbians, one for all queer folks.

Tayná: Sounds like I’ll have to come back next summer and check that out! Could you tell me a bit about the Roman Pride parade?

Tayná: Lots for queer people to do during Roman summer! What about winter?

Diego: The winter is very nice. It doesn’t get super cold here during winter and the city looks beautiful during Christmas time. Also, there is a queer pop festival which happens every year in the beginning of January. It’s called Funtastic and the first edition happened last year. It was very successful so we decided to make it an yearly event. We invite queer performers from all over Europe for it and have three days of parties. Of course there is also a huge New Years party at Muccassassina! The good thing about winter in Rome is the weather, it's always sunny in Rome so it’s a good winter escape for other cold European countries… it's very nice for the soul and for the mood. You know it, you are Brazilian!