Theatre and Drag Scene

Rebar itself was partially credited with the success of Guys In Disguise 2: The Sequin at Fringe in 1994 due to its "true cabaret" atmosphere. Audiences could eat, drink, and smoke as they enjoyed the "quorum of queens" and Christopher Peterson's "uncanny impersonations" at one of the few places for drag shows in the city. The show was so popular that it was held over for repeat performances after the festival, and it certainly would not be Rebar's last.

Between the "incredibly hip crowd" in Doc Martens and the "too cool" club kids in Fluevog shoes, one of Rebar's most dedicated patrons was the Edmonton Fringe Festival. The upstairs and downstairs of the club were transformed each year into Bring-Your-Own-Venue stages for numerous plays, including Transvestite Television; Tranny, Get Your Gun; The Cosmic Adventures of Muffy Gallant; PileDriver!; and Men Are Stoopid, Women Are Crazy. Rebar had captured some of the glamour of the old Flashback stage and became the perfect place to reminisce and celebrate Flashback after the launch party for Darrin Hagen’s autobiographical book, The Edmonton Queen: Not A Riverboat Story, in the fall of 1997.

Growing Edmonton’s Queer Music and Art Community

Rebar's reputation as a queer-friendly stage was not limited to the Fringe Festival. San Francisco "queercore" band Pansy Division made their second Edmonton appearance at Rebar in the fall of 1994. Frontman Jon Ginoli commented on the lack of openly gay rockers, something he aspired to change with his "blatantly sexual" but "very playful" lyrics. Edmonton's own legendary gay rocker, Ken Chinn, better known as Mr. Chi Pig, would also take the stage with hardcore skate-punk band SNFU several times. Though not closeted, Chinn's sexuality had been an open secret for a decade and undoubtedly had an influence on his lyrics. When the band surprised Edmonton with a free concert in 1998, the concert preview in the Edmonton Journal read "If you're not queued up outside of Rebar as you read this, it must mean that you already scored a ticket…"

Beyond the August theatre season, live music on Saturdays and "gay-friendly" "Boys Night Out" Thursdays ("not that they aren't gay-friendly other nights", quipped the Edmonton Journal), Rebar still had room in their roster for more. A screening of Fantasmagoria: Sexing the Lesbian Imagination by the lesbian art collective Lock Up Your Daughters went ahead at Rebar without issue in 1995, opening the Film and Video Arts Society of Alberta (FAVA)'s two-day workshop on sexuality in film and performance art. The series of short films had sparked controversy when they premiered at the New Gallery in Calgary in 1993, drawing the ire of the Alberta Government and provoking several cabinet ministers into threatening to withdraw funding. Filmmaker Carla Wolfe, who led the workshop with film writer Don McKellar, commented on government reactions to gay art: "I think the basic problem is we live in a homophobic society. We can't even get same-sex couples rights protected in the Charter."

FUNdraising

Rebar mobilized its reputation as the most popular nightclub on Whyte Avenue for community fundraising. Gala on Whyte featured a huge range of entertainment including carollers from the Edmonton Opera, improv, magic tricks and illusions, fashion shows, casinos, and raffles for prizes. Glimpses of local celebrities from within and beyond of the queer community were common: "renaissance man/woman" Darrin Hagen hosted the proceedings as Gloria Hole in heels and sequins while city councillor Michael Phair appeared on stage in pyjamas or mingling in the crowd wearing fairy wings and selling raffle tickets. Even recently elected Mayor Bill Smith tended the bar at the inaugural gala, though local queer Times .10 magazine cheekily listed him as "barred" from Rebar and other venues after he refused to declare Gay Pride Day in Edmonton the following year. Between 1995 and 1999, the Gala on Whyte fundraiser collected thousands of dollars before the holiday season each winter, split between organizations such as the Youth Emergency Shelter Society, Edmonton's Sexual Assault Centre, and the Food Bank.

The "barring" of Mayor Smith from Rebar and other community spaces over Gay Pride Day represented the tip of the iceberg of queer issues in the 1990s. Queer lives and livelihoods continued to face a lack of protections from discrimination as the HIV/AIDS epidemic raged on. Even as medical advances made living with HIV bearable, those with a positive diagnosis were still met with fear and discrimination born out of prejudice and misinformation. In 1995, Rebar sponsored Living Positive ads in Times .10 magazine to raise awareness and to link those infected and affected by the illness to support and information.

Rebar was also one of several participating businesses in collaboration with the Metropolitan Community Church's No-Name Fundraiser, which gathered money and supplies for Christmas hampers for those affected by HIV and AIDS. Rebar sponsored the third annual fundraiser in 1997 and donated prizes for supporting tournaments, helping to raise over $1600 for the cause. The fourth No Name Fundraiser in 1998, unfortunately, resulted in calls to boycott Rebar when the club refused to honour the promised sponsorship. Times .10 magazine scathingly wrote that Rebar was "NOT a community member nor should they be trusted in holding future fundraisers" in their thank you message to those who stepped up to make up the shortfall.

When the Music Stopped: Closure and Legacy

At the dawn of the new millennium, the party at Rebar still appeared to be going strong. A second location opened in Calgary in the spring of 1998, the Gala on Whyte event continued to raise thousands, and patrons eagerly awaited plans of "the purest dance spot in town" for New Years Eve, 1999. Little seemed to slow the club's popularity, even the "split personality" of Whyte Avenue: a family-friendly shopping district by day that became a hive of vandalism at night. Club-goers dispersed from Rebar at 3 a.m. and walked across the cars at Don Wheaton's nearby dealership leaving glass, litter, and bodily fluids in their wake. Club owners on Whyte refuted calls by city councillors such as Michael Phair for earlier closing times, claiming that the same destruction would simply occur earlier.

Edmontonians were shocked to learn in February of 2000 that Rebar would be shutting its doors due to a rent dispute with the landlord. Other venues in the city scrambled to pick up the full roster of celebrity DJs and musicians already booked for the upcoming weeks. Although Rebar reopened for a night as "Club on Whyte", it would never be the same.

By the time Darrin Hagen and Chris Craddock staged the sold-out Li'l Orphan Tranny at Fringe in August 2000, "the club formerly known as Rebar", now Parliament, had rebranded itself at least three times. In 2002, former Rebar patron Samson Chui had opened the space as PURE, which offered "weirdo entertainments" like ice sculpting, fire dancers, improv and escape artists. Although the club was barely open a year, Chui claimed that PURE had not had a single fight. Homophobic would-be patrons were turned away at the door, since PURE's reputation required "a good attitude to come in." "If you have a problem with open-mindedness, if you have a problem with choices," Chui commented, "then you really would hate this club."

Although the crowds of "hooligans" on Whyte Avenue seemed to be hastening the demise of Edmonton's alternative spaces, Edmonton's fragmented club scene still tried to pick up the "alternative energies" that Rebar had salvaged from Flashback. Other clubs advertised nights with "Rebar-style tunes", or tried to recreate their own versions of the drag bingo nights that Darrin Hagen hosted there. After The Roost closed in 2007, Hagen himself would comment on the lack of a contemporary "hybrid gay-and-straight dance club" like Rebar, nearly a decade after its closure. That same year, gay magazine Outlooks published a photo collage of smiling faces at New City Likwid Lounge, celebrating a successful Rebar reunion. While turning the beat on Whyte Ave for less than a decade, Rebar left a lasting impression on both of Edmonton’s alternative and queer communities, much like Flashback had done decades before in the heart of downtown.