Makumba is the biggest queer club night in Puglia and has been running for close to twenty years. It draws people from well beyond Bari, and for a large part of the region it is the night that the scene is organised around.
The evening is built as a show rather than just a dancefloor. An opening performance by the Makumba cast and a dance academy leads into DJ sets, with drag queens from Drag Race Italia among the guests across a season. Formats, staging and effects change from one event to the next.
Through autumn, winter and spring it takes place at the Palaghiaccio on the eastern edge of the city. In summer the party moves outdoors and travels to other venues around Puglia. The club describes itself as inclusive and exclusive at once, somewhere anyone can express themselves without filters, and the crowd is genuinely mixed rather than exclusively gay.
