How The Yumbo Centre Became the Gayest Place in Europe

At the heart of Gran Canaria’s queer nightlife stands an unpreposessing pile of concrete turned cultural icon: the Yumbo Centre. By day, it’s a sleepy, open-air shopping complex. By night, it transforms into the throbbing pulse of LGBTQ+ life in Playa del Inglés - possibly the gayest square mile in Europe.

A Shopping Centre With a Double Life

When the Yumbo Centre was inaugurated in October 1982, nobody could have predicted its future. Built by tourism entrepreneurs Estanislao Mañaricúa Belacortu and Alejandro del Castillo, the 20,000-square-meter complex was designed as a traditional shopping mall to serve the growing tourist industry in southern Gran Canaria.

The Yumbo - centrally located and surrounded by hotels - soon became a natural gathering point for tourists looking to party. Many of those tourists were gay.

From Sundowners to Slings

It didn’t take long for bars to open, catering specifically to gay tourists. The scene exploded in the 1990s and early 2000s, and today, the Yumbo is home to more than 50 LGBTQ+ venues - from drag show bars and cabarets to fetish clubs, dark rooms, cruising mazes, and saunas. You can sip a daiquiri at Mykonos, strut your stuff at Sparkles, and be in a sling at The Box all in the same night.

One of the most appealing aspects of the Yumbo Centre is how unashamedly trashy it is. It’s packed with tourists, mostly gay, looking to party, get drunk and get laid. People migrate from trashy bars with dated drags to the sleaziest sex clubs, and it’s all done in a spirit of outrageous fun. You can expand your cultural horizons on vacation, or you can go to Gran Canaria and behave like a Yahoo. The prudish may disapprove (with secret envy) but party monsters know The Yumbo Centre is the place to be. Just remember to take a double dose of Prep.

Events That Shaped the Scene

Annual festivals like Maspalomas Pride, Winter Pride, and Bear Carnival turned the Yumbo into a queer pilgrimage site. Thousands now descend on this four-storey labyrinth of balconies and clubs, turning its square into an open-air dancefloor. It’s become a place not just to party, but to feel seen, safe, and celebrated.

From neon-lit dancefloors to shadowy cruising mazes, the Yumbo Centre has earned its crown. It’s the kind of place where you can become best friends with someone in the smoking area in the space of five minutes.