The world’s premier gay dance music festival, White Party, returned to Bangkok for the third time to bid 2017 farewell and to celebrate the New Year 2018. White Party Bangkok was launched in Bangkok, Thailand, in 2015, and it is the first certified Palm Spring-originated Jeffrey Sanker’s White Party outside North America and the only official one in Asia.
White Party Bangkok’s inauguration parties earned the nominations for “Best Circuit Staging/Circuit Production,” “Best New Circuit Event” and “International Circuit Party of the Year” from Just Circuit Awards, signifying the Party’s world class standard and the reasons why partygoers should experience it.
Presented by Cloud 9 Inc and Jeffrey Sanker, White Party Bangkok 2018 (WPBKK2018) spanned over four days with five different parties from 28 to 31 December 2017. For the third time in a row, with generous support by the people behind WPBKK2018, TestBKK came back to conduct the outreach to the circuiters.
At the Jock Ball – The Rooftop Party (30 December 2017), where RuPaul’s Drag Race alumn Kennedy Davenport did her first ever gig in Asia, TestBKK disseminated its HIV prevention kit. Throughout the party, TestBKK’s sexy male models welcomed every partygoer with its bright yellow “Suck. F*#k. Test. Report” gym bag as a welcome gift. Inside the bag were five packs of condoms and water-based lubricants as well as TestBKK’s resources on PrEP, online booking platform and testing service reminder, along with the first ever TestXXX postcard. A total of 900 bags, or 4,500 condoms and water-based lubricants, were given away.
TestXXX is APCOM’s innovative HIV testing campaign initiative for cities with high HIV prevalence among gay men and other men who have sex with men (MSM). Bangkok (TestBKK), Saigon (TestSGN), Manila (TestMNL), Jakarta (TestJKT), Hong Kong (TestHKG) and Yogyakarta (TestJOG) are the current six cities in which TestXXX is operating.
The distribution of the TestXXX postcard in the party marked the launch of TestXXX.org – the microsite for all TestXXX campaigns. It is hoped that the circuiters who received the bag, particularly those who came from the aforementioned cities, became aware of the campaigns.
When being asked his opinion about the TestXXX campaign, a young circuiter from Hong Kong responded that he and his friends were stocked to have a matching bag to bring home to. The young man also thought that the PrEP leaflet given in the bag was very helpful in explaining the anti-HIV medication in a language that is easy to understand.
While PrEP in Hong Kong is still not yet available under the public health system, TestHKG – a TestXXX campaign managed by AIDS Concern Hong Kong, has been actively promoting PrEP on its website by endorsing the purchase of the medication from clinics in Bangkok.
