Plan your night by neighbourhood

Collingwood is the modern heart of Melbourne's queer nightlife — the northern run of Smith Street where The Peel has held the dancefloor for over 35 years, warehouse rooms hide behind Langridge Street doors, and band pubs roll into club nights. Loud, unpolished and proudly queer, this is where a Melbourne night out ends up.

Fitzroy holds the southern half of Smith Street's queer strip — Sircuit's dancefloor and drag stage, Mollie's rooftop safe-space above the street, cabaret at The 86, and a block of band rooms and cocktail dens on Brunswick Street. It's the neighbourhood where queer nightlife and the inner-north's live-music culture share the same footpath.

The Chapel Street precinct is Melbourne's southside party strip and its historic gay heartland — Commercial Road wore the rainbow first, and Saturday nights still belong to Poof Doof at Chasers. Add Revolver's endless weekends, Love Machine's three floors and The Emerson's rooftop, and this is where Melbourne goes big south of the river.

Melbourne's CBD hides its nightlife in laneways — Miscellania's rooftop queer club nights above Swanston Street, cabaret and drag at The Butterfly Club's kitsch-crammed theatre bar, underground rooms like Sub Club and Solace, and Curtin House stacking bands, cocktails and late floors on top of each other.