Torture Garden 2019 dates have now been firmed up for most of the year, from its two London Valentines nights in mid-February through to its Not New Year’s Eve Ball on December 30.

This year’s UK schedule embraces 14 London balls, five Brighton manor house parties and three Scottish dates. In addition, Tokyo and Rome are both on this year’s international calendar, with New York  Los Angeles and New York parties due to be confirmed soon too.

The first TG date of 2019, coming up this weekend (Sunday February 3) is actually not a party but this year’s first Le Boutique Bazaar pop-up alt/fetish shopping afternoon, which is co-hosted by TG.

LBB fans will be aware that it had to start looking for a new home in 2018 following the loss of original Shoreditch venue McQueen after it was closed for refurbishment. 

A new venue lined up on the Thames embankment fell through when it failed to open on time. But when LBB secured TG’s regular NNYE home Ministry of Sound for its London Fetish Weekend edition, things appeared to be looking up at last.

The October Sunday afternoon at Ministry attracted lots of interesting new vendors (see galleries below), but footfall was low for what had previously been Boutique Bazaar’s biggest event of the year.

One likely explanation for this was that the Saturday night of this year’s London Fetish Weekend had uncharacteristically offered the possibility of attending three different parties. 

And the availability of so much partying the night before might well have impinged on people’s inclination to go shopping (or even be awake) the next day.

It was also suggested that the south London location, though only a couple of hundred metres from TG’s much-loved venue of old, the Coronet, might have been a deterrent to many of the folk who go out in Shoreditch on a Sunday afternoon. I mean, Elephant & Castle? There be monsters, right?

Delicate Shoreditch flowers will no doubt be delighted to learn that this coming Sunday’s LBB returns to the location of its Christmas 2018 event — almost literally in McQueen’s backyard. 

It will pop up in time for pre-Valentines gift-buying at ‘glamorous strip club venue’ For Your Eyes Only (aka FYEO), 23 City Road, EC1Y 1AG. The usual 12-7pm opening times and £5 entry via Facebook both apply.

At the bottom of this page you can see galleries from the October Le Boutique Bazaar at Ministry of Sound, which featured a host of first-time vendors.

For partygoers, Torture Garden 2019 dates start mid-February with two back-to-back Valentine’s events in separate venues, arranged to provide the total audience capacity previously provided by the Coronet.

Its first 2019 Valentines Ball is on Friday 15 at Electrowerkz, with the second on Saturday 16 at the Scala.

Both venues are of equal scale at approximately 1,200 capacity and both feature two dance floors, fashion shows, performances, dungeon and couples room.

Friday 15’s Electrowerkz gathering is headlined by an AMF/Fleischauer Creations fashion show — something not to miss if you’ve never seen an AMF show before, or even if you have! 

AMF designer Louis Fleischauer will also feature in the performance line-up at Saturday 16’s Ball, which includes a fashion show by Magdalena Celeste and Bakeneko Designs. 

Unfortunately both Valentines events have sold out. But TG says there will be some returned tickets, and to be in with a chance you should check the Facebook events pages “for information to join the waiting list for returns”.

Originally it had been hoped that Valentines would see Torture Garden staging its first 2019 ball at Studio 338, the large north Greenwich venue near the o2 where it held its Halloween Ball last November.

But unfortunately Halloween at Studio 338 was not a complete success, due mainly to inadequate cloakroom facilities causing major problems particularly when people wanted to leave.

TG says it tried everything during negotiations with the venue to avoid what is a very well known issue with large scale fetish events in cold weather. But it seems that on the night, the venue still underestimated the scale of the situation it would need to deal with.