1979 New York Gay Erotic Film Festival Poster (Reprint of 1979 Promo Poster)

First New York Gay Erotic Film Festival — 1979

Big Top Erotic Cinema — Times Square, NYC

In 1979, in the neon glow of pre-cleanup Times Square, the Big Top Erotic Cinema hosted what is believed to be New York’s first dedicated gay erotic film festival — not an arthouse showcase, not a nonprofit cultural event, but a full-throttle, unapologetically adult cinematic gathering.

Held inside Big Top — a male erotic theater operating just off Broadway — the festival centered exclusively on gay adult films, at a time when such work circulated in fragmented distribution networks and rarely received formal billing as a curated event.

For many attendees, festivals like this were about more than entertainment — they were about visibility and shared experience. Before video stores carried wide selections. Before home media made everything private. Before digital platforms erased geography. Spaces like Big Top created collective viewing moments for queer men in a city that was still negotiating how openly that desire could exist.