The Mr Gay Europe website is back up and running!
This also marks the kick-off for the 10th Mr Gay Europe competition and our way back to basics.
We felt the competition was about to lose track of the original ideas and ideals of Mr Gay Europe, and have been doing some house cleaning and updates.
Mr Gay Europe has come a long way since two friends had a couple of beers – and maybe some margaritas – in the fall of 2004 and came up with this crazy idea to arrange Mr Gay Europe – like, how decadent was it possible to be?
Let’s just say it has been an interesting, wild, crazy, frustrating, eye-opening, challenging happy and giving time.
The first year the competition was just an excuse to throw a party. The second year we started to see the shape of the future of Mr Gay Europe. We were happy that the competition grew more and more into a human rights event, and we are proud of all the brave and proud contestants we’ve had through the years.
All along the goal has been to package the fight and work for human and gay rights with a positive, happy and entertaining event. As the time has passed, the world has – in most cases – gone forward, and Mr Gay Europe needs to do the same.
If there is one thing we don’t want to be, is a beauty pageant where body trumps brains, and muscles are more important than man to man relationships, networking and friendship, and unity through diversity.
Mr Gay Europe is the original Mr Gay competition, though others have tried to copy us and even tried to change us, we want to go back to the roots, where friendship and enlightenment are the focus of the competition.
One way to put it, is that we need to be more to the point and follow our own rules. We invite you to read them as we believe those will explain more than anything else what Mr Gay Europe is all about – because we want to make a promise to you – it is not empty words and hollow phrases.
Many of you have gotten in touch with us and asked what is going on and when the next Mr Gay Europe will take place. Frankly, we had to do – on many levels – some house cleaning. By going back to the basics, our first step is to truly open the competition to all of Europe.
We still prioritize to work with some of our hard working producers, but in countries with no producers, or producers who are not going to keep the license, contestants can register online.
Our authorized producers around Europe are working hard with the same goals as Mr Gay Europe. We feel it is just wrong to ask the producers to pay up in order to work for gay rights. There should not be a price tag for working for human rights.
Each contestant who registers for Mr Gay Europe has to pay a registration fee. 25 percent of the fee goes back to our authorized producers. The rest of the money is covering costs in connection with the international final. Mr Gay Europe is a non-profit organization and all the work is done voluntarily. If a contestant registers from a country that for any reason is not participating in the final, his registration fee will be refunded before the final takes place.
So what is Mr Gay Europe?
Each year the contestants make Mr Gay Europe into what it is. The Mr Gay Europe organization will continue to stride for a fun, educating and enlightening, safe, happy and positive event where gay men of all ages can make friends, build networks and help us create the new gay generation – our future. We need to keep fighting for our rights – human rights are fresh goods, if we don’t pay attention it goes sour and rots.
We appreciate your feedback and comments and invite you to join the Mr Gay Europe family.