Amerika

Amerika has been operating in Palermo since 1991 and occupies a position in South American gay nightlife that is difficult to overstate. For over thirty years it has been the reference point for gay clubbing in Argentina — the venue that international visitors make the pilgrimage to, the space where circuit parties come to Buenos Aires, and the club that defines the scale and ambition of what gay nightlife in Latin America can look like. The building is purpose-built for the task: three floors, multiple bars, a main room with a sound system calibrated for the specific acoustics of the space, a capacity of approximately three thousand people, and a production quality on themed nights and special events that rivals anything in Europe or North America. Amerika operates on the Buenos Aires schedule, which means doors open around midnight and the main floor does not reach full energy until three or four in the morning, with the venue running until ten or eleven — a full working shift by any standard. The weekly programming covers Friday and Saturday as the principal nights, with themed events and international DJs brought in for the circuit parties that Buenos Aires hosts during the summer (December–February) and around Pride in November. The crowd is predominantly gay male on the main floor, with mixed areas elsewhere in the building. For visitors to Buenos Aires, Amerika is not one option among several — it is the essential gay nightclub experience of the city, and by extension of Latin America.