#ALW25: One Week Later...
- l3athermengr
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
Dear all,
We hope this email finds you well. It is one week after this year’s Athens Leather Weekend and time to report back to our subscribers. To sum up: the event was a blast! We never expected to see so many people visiting from Greece and abroad and joining us! It was an exciting three days of meeting new and old friends, socialising, enjoying each other’s company (in various ways...) and, for those coming from abroad, getting to know the city.
Whereas some people had already arrived from Thursday and we had the chance to meet for a few drinks informally, the weekend properly kicked off on Friday night at del Sol Café near Kerameikos metro station, where we were already surprised to find many more people than we were expecting there, socialising and getting to know each other.
We then continued with our next event — clearly one of the highlights of the entire weekend — the Leather Social at Big Bar Athens. We never expected we would fill the entire outdoor space of the venue as well as part of the interior of the bar with leathermen from Greece and abroad! It was a great atmosphere with a very friendly vibe, as was commented by both members of our group as well as bar regulars who approached us to congratulate us on what we had achieved. This is new territory for the Greek gay scene!
We do need to address the only dark spot of the entire weekend. We had agreed in writing with Alexander sauna on a €4 discount to their entrance fee for our visitors attending the next Leather Cruising event. The agreement clearly stated that this discount would be granted on production of the online electronic voucher available on our website. However, just two hours before the event, Alexander announced that they would accept only printed vouchers — which, of course, we had not produced — and they denied the discount to everyone. This was a clear intent to cheat and exploit our visitors and our group. Both two years ago and again this year, they also tried to run ‘leather events’ clashing with ours, aiming to attract our own visitors to their venue instead. This is utterly unethical and unacceptable behaviour and we will not support or promote that venue ever again.
Saturday started at the balcony of Carnal Athens café (formerly known as Voilà Athens), where we enjoyed brunch and coffee with views of the Acropolis in the background. We then continued with our City Walk to the areas of Monastiraki and Plaka, all the way to Areopagus rock beneath the Acropolis, where we took more photos and then continued to Hadrian’s Gate, the Pillars of Olympian Zeus and Zappeion mansion. It was a great event making our community visible in central Athens, and the interactions with locals and visitors to the city were amazing. We concluded the walk with coffee and food at Rooster café in Agias Eirinis square.
Our Saturday night clubbing event at SMUT Athens was also a great success, with more people in gear attending than last year and an even more diverse crowd. SMUT is exactly the kind of venue that suits our events, and we are grateful to have such a great working relationship with the people running it. We want to thank them for agreeing to let some of us in for photography inside the venue shortly before the start of the night.
Sunday’s events ran very smoothly and successfully as well. The shibari bondage workshop we organised was sold out and we received very positive feedback; we will be running more regular events like this in the future. We then continued with lunch at To Lokali restaurant, which was just around the corner from the workshop venue, and then for dessert at Ta Serbetia in the nearby area of Psyrri.
The weekend concluded with a hugely successful Farewell Drinks event at Big Bar — this time it was much busier than equivalent events in previous years and much busier than the bar usually is on a Sunday night. By the time we left at 1:30 a.m., it was still busy!
We want to thank all the venues and their managers who were so co-operative and supportive of our event. And, of course, we need to thank all of you who attended and supported us, who clearly enjoyed the weekend and gave us so many compliments. This year, we welcomed visitors from the UK, Ireland, Germany, Colombia, Poland, Australia and the USA, as well as locals and regular attendees. Our event also received more attention than ever before from local media such as Antivirus, Olafaq and GayHellas. We think it is safe to say that the Athens Leather Weekend is now firmly stamped on the map, not only of Greece but of the world too.
Last but not least:
We want to hear your feedback, whether you attended or simply followed us through social media. If you can take 2–3 minutes to fill in our feedback form, it would be very helpful for planning and improving future events.
As we are not a registered business or charity, we rely on donations to cover our expenses and always value the gesture rather than the amount. Anyone who wishes to support us via our GoFundMe page, we would be extremely grateful!
Our next event is the December Leather Social at Big Bar Athens, on 19 December. This will run during the same weekend as another event by one of our community partners, Satyrs and Maenads — their ‘Pornolaiki’ (Porn Flea Market) at Romantso — so it’ll be a busy weekend! We hope to see you then.
And yes — why not? — we’ve already announced the dates of the next Athens Leather Weekend: 20–22 November 2026. And it will be even more of a blast! See you then!
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