Once again, Manhunt brings us 12 unforgettable months by the prestigious Spanis photographer JP Santamaria. According to JP ”The selection of the boys was quite complicated because there were hundreds of candidates willing to appear in the pages of our calendar. All them so beautiful and hot “

Finally the 15 selected models posed for JP leaving us all breathless with these photographs,  playful and sensual representing each season of the year.

“It was a very hard work of many months to organize and get a perfect shot and these perfect boys. But the result has been worth it. We’ve had a great time and we hope thate veryone enjoys the 2012 Calendar and their boys “

You can download the Calendar in a premium quality  HERE

United Russia has taken political control after the last elections with more than 49% of the vote and had ensured that they will now defend the laws to prohibit an alleged “homosexual propaganda” without fear of sentences from international community.

They also confirm that despite the U.S. is pushing them to make them to see reason,  America will not take the reins of their policy.

Juan, you chose to position your hotels as HETEROFRIENDLY, a variation on the term ‘straight-friendly’ frequently used, what made you decide to choose this brand adjective as opposed to GAYFRIENDLY or simply GAY?

“The Axel hotel chain started with our Barcelona hotel which used to be a gay-only
hotel.  Typically our guests come from the US and Spain for the major part, followed
by the UK and France, and with the remainder coming from the rest of Europe.
Depending on the time of the year, the hotel has got a varying percentage of gay
people.  In the summer – July, August and September – 90% of our customers are
gay.  However, if you come during the winter months, the period when Barcelona
hosts various international fairs, the clientele tends to be a lot more mixed.” [...]

We want everybody to be welcome but we still want all
our potential customers to know that it is a hotel focusing on the gay community,
and if they are comfortable with it, that is excellent.  If they are not comfortable
being amongst gay people then they are not welcome here and should go to other
hotels. On average, throughout the year, the hotel is around 70% gay and lesbian
and 30% heterosexual.  We chose not to use the label ‘gay-friendly’ as we feel the
term has been overused. [...]

“We also chose not to position ourselves as a gay hotel because sometimes gay-only hotels
can be a little ‘too gay’ and some of our customers prefer when we are mixed.  We
are not and do not want to be a gay ghetto, we want everybody to feel welcome but we still want all our potential customers to know that it is a hotel focusing on the gay community.  We are a hetero-friendly hotel.” [...]

You initially used to be a gay hotel but then you decided to transition to heterofriendly, what did that entail?

“I believe that to position yourself as heterofriendly you have to open as a gay hotel
first and you have to be known and well-recognised in the gay community as a gay
brand or a gay product focusing on a gay clientele and then and only then you can
transition to heterofriendly product or brand.” [...]

“The danger comes when you start
welcoming girls and straight friends of gay men to a place, be it a bar or a club, the
place then starts becoming popular with these girls and their girl-friends, the ratio
has become a shrinking 70% gays, the remaining being 30% of straight girls.  Then
all of the sudden heterosexual men chasing after the girls start transforming the
place and really unbalancing the ratio. After a few months, you are not a gay bar or
a gay disco anymore, gay men have stopped coming and you cannot even pretend
to be gay friendly anymore.” [...]

Do you think that a HETEROFRIENDLY positioning will also appeal more to younger
gay people?

“The fact is that the older generations of gay men, those above 40, are typically more
used to the gay community and are not as open as the younger gays are now.  The
younger gay people like to mix when they go out, they like to be surrounded by
girls, boys, straights, gays, everyone together because they don’t care.  I guess the
fight for equal rights by the older gay generation has borne some fruits.  In the
same way as the young generation who seek such more mixed surroundings, we did
not want a hotel that would be catering for a ghettoised gay grown-up clientele, we
wanted to welcome everybody.  We realised that when our more grown-up guests
came to the hotel they liked to see younger people and that the younger people
wanted to see a mix of people.  The Sky Bar, the roof terrace bar of the Axel Barcelona is generally very mixed, except for the two specifically themed parties that we offer each week,  1 gay and 1 lesbian.  It is generally filled with 60% gay men and the 40% remaining is composed of straight men and women as well as lesbians.”

Was it difficult to get your family to support and invest in the hotel?

“The hardest part was not my family, it was the banks.  My background was not from
the hotel industry and nor was my family’s.  I have a marketing background and
studied economics and did an MBA.  However, I had been interested in the hotel
business ever since I was a child.  I eventually gained some experience working for
an international Spanish company, but always knew that I wanted to do something
for myself.  I was working on a Relais & Châteaux project for which I secured the
financing.  I realised then that there was a gap in the market with a niche for gay
hotels.  I researched and studied the opportunity and realised that the only gay
hotels in the world where usually in holiday destinations in the US or Europe, in
places like Fort Lauderdale, Key West, Provincetown, Sitges, Mykonos, etc.” [...]

“I realised that the niche opportunity was
to focus on the gay community and offer them very nice establishments in the
centres of large cosmopolitan cities that are favoured destinations of gay tourists.
Of course, I had to buy the building and I put all my money into it, and while my
family also took part in the investment, I still had to find a bank that would become
the biggest stakeholder.  I had to visit several banks and convince at least one of
them of the validity of my project.  You can imagine how some of the meetings
would go – you would have at least 10 men, all dressed in black or navy suits,
looking sternly at you while you tell them that you are gay, that you have a project
of opening a hotel that will focus on the gay community and that it will cost around
€12million.”

Did your bank manager provide the necessary financial support due solely to him
seeing a good business opportunity or was the bank itself actively engaging in
attracting gay businesses?

“I did not knock on the door of a particular bank because of a specific program to
support the gay community.  I just went to several of the major banks, and selected
this particular one because I got the best feeling.  The project financing was entirely
driven by this specific bank manager who could see that the project was good.  He
had an important position in the bank, I am not sure if he was gay or not, it should
and does not really matter, the key was that he was smart and that after a few
conversations he could see the great potential that my project offered, he liked my
business plan and looked at the pros and cons.  I was buying the building in 2000,
before real estate prices climbed to the 2007 peak level and before the 2008 crash
and therefore, this looked like a good opportunity for them.” [...]

“I do not think that today any bank in Spain – and I would venture even in Europe -
knows or has got any active successful program to capture the pink euro.  In 2000,
there definitely were none.  I know some Spanish banks have tried to do small
campaigns for supporting gay businesses but never with any real consistent
marketing strategy.  Generally, these are sporadic campaigns, very localised and
never part of a real strategy.  In some cases companies have tried to position
themselves as GAY- FRIENDLY, but frankly, in our day and age, in liberal societies
and in the environment in which I move, who is not gay-friendly?  You only need one
gay customer to be gay-friendly and you do not even have to treat them particularly
well – and the gay community has caught on to this.” [...]

What is your view on some of these large international hotel and resort groups’
strategy to open gay hotels?

“Some of these companies have indeed stated that they are looking to open gay
hotels and if you, for example, look at Thomson holidays they too are looking to
brand some of their hotels as gay or gay-friendly. Are they looking to offer a special
package-holiday for people going on a gay holiday? How many gays will there be at
the destination? Is it even a gay destination? Who decides whether their hotel is gay
or not?  As you can imagine, I know a lot of the hotels of Barcelona, the Axel hotel is
in the official tourist guide together with some other hotels that are supposed to be
gay-friendly.  Let me tell you, their owners and their management are not gay, and
some of them are as unfriendly to gays as if they were the bishop of Rome!!!  I do
not know how they can have the audacity to claim to be gay-friendly.  In truth most
gay-friendly hotels are really simply trying to widen their revenue sources and as
such will target the gay market.  They will of course treat gay customers in the same
way as they do all their other customers, however they will not make any efforts to
attract gay guests nor attempt to engage or support the local gay community, their
only aim is get a share of the pink wallet.” [...]

For the entire Interview click here

George Michael has postponed a series of concerts after being taken to hospital for treatment for pneumonia.

The singer had been due to appear in Vienna as part of his Symphonica tour on Monday but cancelled two hours before it was due to start.

Austria’s state broadcaster is reporting that the former Wham star is at Vienna’s AKH hospital.

His publicist Connie Filippello confirmed the 48-year-old star was currently receiving treatment.

This weekend’s concert in Cardiff has also been cancelled.

In October, a viral infection caused Michael to pull out of a show at the Royal Albert Hall in London, following advice from doctors.

Earlier this month, Michael performed for Sir Elton John’s Aids Foundation at the Royal Opera House in London.

Recently, the singer criticized Eastenders on Twitter for its negative portrayal of gay people. Michael remarked that the storyline between the show’s gay couple Christian and Sayed was “insulting to the gay community.”

Interested in the last edition of the 5th Avenue Fashion Show? Have a glance at our Flickr’s photo gallery.

5TH AVENUE – HOST DESTYNEE
PRODUCED BY JBZ PRODUCTIONS

More Info  (+49) 30 2100 28 93 | Axel Hotel Berli berlin@axelhotels.com

Councillors in Glasgow have agreed a motion supporting Scottish Government proposals to allow same-sex marriage.

Councillor Alex Dingwall, who tabled the motion, said: “I’m immensely happy that today Glasgow has continued our city’s proud record of opposing discrimination in all its forms and unanimously supporting the campaign for marriage equality.

“In doing so we have rejected those who want to tell our LGBT community in Glasgow that they are not equal, that they are wrong, that they are evil. We are happy to join with the Unitarians, Quakers, Metropolitan Church, Liberal Judaism and others who want to provide equal marriage.”

The motion suggests that the Scottish Government should recognise the “shift in public attitudes within its current consultation on equal marriage”, and that establishing equal marriage and mixed sex civil partnerships would “in no way undermine the rights and freedoms of those religious bodies which do not wish to participate in them”.

The head of the Scottish Episcopal Church also voiced his support for gay marriage this month. The Most Rev David Chillingworth wrote that it is the government’s right to legislate for the change.

Writing in the Scotsman, he suggested his own church may “consider changing our canonical definition of marriage”.

He wrote: “If, following the consultation period, the Scottish government and parliament feel that they should legislate in this way, I believe that it is their right to do so.

“It is clear that there would be an ‘opt-out’ protection for those who cannot accept this. Churches and faith groups would have to decide whether they wished to use or to stand outside the provisions of such legislation.

“The suggestion has been made that the Scottish government does not have a mandate to introduce legislation which is of such fundamental significance for our society.

“Jesus did not call the church into being as a citadel of orthodoxy. He was constantly criticised because he spent time with people who didn’t fit the conventional patterns and were deemed unacceptable by others.”

Last week, the head of the Catholic church in Scotland said gay marriages could be “harmful to society”.

Meanwhile, Glasgow archbishop Mario Conti has written to all Scottish parishes to urge them to oppose the government’s marriage equality consultation.

He said that churches would “actively campaign” to block marriage rights for gay people and warned that the move would create “larger divisions” in society.

Last week, former SNP leader Gordon Wilson was voted off the board of Dundee’s Citizens Advice Bureau over his views against gay marriage.

Demi, who released her album Unbroken last month to positive reviews, encouraged the crowd to sing along and called out fans who travel from all over to watch her perform.  She adds runs to her songs like her teen star predecessor Christina Aguilera did before all her songs turned into one big run, and watching the performance was especially ironic since the Aeropostale second floor where Demi performed was once the famed TRL studios where Christina made many a MTV appearance.  In keeping with that spirit, fans who didn’t make it in lined the streets outside in Times Square for a glimpse of Demi, who happily waved through the windows before the show started.

Inside, singing along to every word, girls lifted homemade signs in the air that were almost comically too large for the intimate space and broke down into tears during “Skyscraper,” Demi’s current single.  The best song of her set, however, is a better-than-the-original cover of Lil Wayne’s “How To Love,” which the DJ host described as subtitles to Wayne’s version, since the crowd could understand the lyrics thanks to Demi.

The festival is organized by Zander & Partner Event-Marketing GmbH, with Director Birgit Zander as the driving force behind it. In cooperation with the “City Stiftung Berlin” and lighting designer Andreas Boehlke, she was already laying the foundation for this successful public event back in 2005.

Numerous celebrities, businesses, institutions and artists are committed to the continual development of the festival. It is only through the involvement of all these people that enables us to transform the entire city into a huge exhibition space with international appeal.

More info: http://festival-of-lights.de/en/the-festival/

The time has come … Axel Hotel Berlin rises the curtain and makes you a proposal that you can’t refuse. Stay with us and attend one of the shows most admired around the world: Blue Man Group. Come and enjoy our package AXEL BERLIN SHOW TIME when you walk by one of the most attractive and cosmopolitan cities in Europe, we put everything at your disposal. Music, lights and staging full of creativity and excitement are waiting for you … and at the end of the day you can relax in our Spa. Surprise someone special with an unforgettable trip to Berlin. You’ll vibrate with a show which has been already enjoyed by more than 17 million people from Las Vegas to Tokyo. We’ll be waiting for you with a cocktail!

Package includes:

Blue Man Group show Ticket
Stay in room design with possibility to upgrade based on availability
Breakfast
Welcome cocktail
Free access to SPA

Berlin – the music capital: a week full of discoveries

The weird sounds of the Underground Sound Festival are reverberating through Alexanderplatz U-Bahn station. Smooth beats are flying from the former imperial post office in the direction of Oranienburger Straße. And techno basses are pounding over the grounds of the former Tempelhof airport. From 7th to 11th September the international music world will have its gaze firmly fixed on Berlin. For this is when the Berlin Music Week will transform every nook and cranny of the city into an exciting, throbbing music metropolis – music capital Berlin. There will be top-class events taking place everywhere: from Mozart marathons at the Berlin Festival and the Berlin Clubnight via the Popkomm International Music Fair through to the all2gethernow music trade meeting. It promises to be a week full of creativity and discoveries.

Berlin Festival: celebrating in the airport

Pop and dubstep, hip hop and psychedelic, tech house and post-punk – the diversity of the “Berlin Festivals” is unique in itself. On 9th and 10th September over 60 bands and DJs will turn the Tempelhof airport’s landing strips and hangars into a musical hotspot. Headlining names include the shooting star James Blake, his London colleague Boy George or Mr. Ozio, the grandmaster of French electronic. But the absolute top act is the Beginner band from Hamburg, who made a name for themselves with hits like “Liebes Lied” (Dear Song) and are appearing together on stage for the first time for seven years. And when the airport lights go out at midnight, the partying will continue until the early hours at the Xberg club: with DJ sets, gigs and performances in the Arena Berlin, the Arena Club, the Hoppetosse and the Glashaus.

Come to Berlin and stay with us at Axel Hotel Berlin!

More info: http://www.visitberlin.de/en