Fri 31 Jan 2014 In: Hall of Fame View at Wayback View at NDHA
New Zealander Natalie Zibung has made a name for herself across the Tasman running classy women’s events under the Lick brand. She’s bringing another amazing Lick night to her hometown for the Auckland Pride Festival, so we get to know her a little better. How did Lick Entertainment get started, and why? I started Lick six years ago when I was 26. I just had broken up with my long-term girlfriend and I was given the opportunity to start a new girls’ night at The Glasshouse in Melbourne. When I moved to Melbourne I didn't feel that I was fitting in anywhere when I went out to other girl nights and so I gathered my ideas on what I felt was missing and executed it. To my absolute surprise it went down well! Lick Entertainment was made into a company in 2010 when I started producing other events other than Lick, I wanted to broaden the range of events and cater to different music styles, have different venues and provide more niche events within the LGBT community. What are your proudest achievements with Lick? The biggest and proudest achievements would have to be getting the opportunity in touring the popular television personalities from The Real L Word. We brought over Whitney Mixter and Sara Bettencourt in 2011 and 2012 to three cities, and last year we toured Lauren Bedford Russell and Kiyomi McCloskey to six cities in Australia as well as New Zealand. And here's some news for you: Whitney was originally meant to propose to Sara at Lick in front of a thousand girls. But the producers of the show didn't want her to do it and save it for when they came back to Los Angeles. When Whitney revealed that to me the second year around I made her re-propose to Sara at Lick in Melbourne in front of a thousand girls! Besides these biggest achievements with Lick, the smaller achievements have greater meaning to me than anything else. It’s the things like getting messages and emails from girls that go to our parties and events all around Australia and say they had a great time, they loved the venue and/or the music, and the best one of all, met someone special at one of our events. Zibung has taken part in the NOH8 Campaign of incredible photos Tell me about growing up in NZ? What called you to Australia? I moved to Auckland from Singapore, my father worked in Hotel Management so we moved around every few years to a different country. I went to St Thomas' Primary and then Selwyn College in East Auckland. I knew that I felt different from a very young age and coming out was really tough for me in high school. I came out to my best friend when I was 19 and then I started coming out to other friends and family from there. At the same time my sister was also coming out and so we were each other's support. When I finally came out in 1999 I found that there weren’t many places to go in Auckland for a gay female. I had trouble connecting with other gay females, making gay friends and felt a strong need to move somewhere else, so I chose Australia. I heard so many things about Midsumma Festival in Victoria and Mardi Gras in Sydney so I figured it was a gay-friendly country. I was also going through a hard time dealing with my parents' divorce and so it was even more reason to just leave and start a new life somewhere on my own two feet. I came to Melbourne with literally a few hundred dollars in my pocket and two suitcases to where I am now. Why is it so important to you to run Lick events here in NZ? I wanted to take Lick back to where I grew up and to where I first came out. I take my events to where there is demand, so when we started spreading around the country we started receiving emails and messages to bring Lick over. I thought bringing over Lauren and Kiyomi would be a great introduction of Lick into New Zealand. We also receive so many messages and emails about doing more events around New Zealand, and because I grew up there I know the importance of having places that girls can go to meet other girls in a safe and comfortable environment, something I wish I had more of growing up. Hot Auckland DJ Marjorie Sinclair will be back on the decks, along with Darnell Adams, Cookie (MELB) and other special guest DJs What can people expect from the Auckland Pride Fest event? At every Lick we aim to keep the night consistent, we choose only beautiful, high end venues where when you walk in you feel a million dollars, we hand-pick the best local DJs and we put on a good night with that simple formula. We have a strong brand that attracts Every now and then we will have a special guest from overseas so stay tuned to our Facebook page as we are currently talking to a few certain TV personalities from a very popular TV series! What are the differences you have noticed between the lesbian scenes in Auckland, and in Aussie cities? And then also in places like LA? What’s the same? You would either agree or disagree with me, but I feel every lesbian scene around the world is the same, if you ask different girls in each city they will either say it's incestuous or bag it out. But from my experience out of all cities I've been to and spent time in, Los Angeles and Melbourne have the most vibrant party scenes for the girls. When I've had events in Auckland I was so surprised and at the same time so happy that a lot of couples came out and had fun. I can appreciate why some girls stay away from the party scene when they are in a relationship, but you do need to have fun every now and then, so it was really nice to see couples feeling comfortable in our environment and just dancing the night away holding their partners on the dancefloor. Sydney is going through a dry spell at the moment but there's an abundance of options for the guys. You'll see a lot of girls out and about on Oxford Street every weekend. But times change quick in the gay scenes and so I feel Sydney will get a transformation very soon. The smaller cities like Perth and Adelaide are picking up more of a gay scene as more nights are starting up and more and more venues are letting gay events being hosted there. We have a fantastic venue in both of those cities, in Perth our venue is an uber-cool warehouse loft type of space called Wolf Lane located down a cobblestone laneway off the main street. In Adelaide we have a modern, million-dollar venue, Apple Bar that used to be an old synagogue. Besides Libertine in Auckland, Apple Bar in Adelaide would have to be my favourite venue so far. Brisbane is one of my favourite cities to hold parties in (after Melbourne of course), I always find the crowd there out just to have a good time and they sure know how to party. Lick will return to the gorgeous Libertine Lick at Auckland Pride Festival Saturday 8 February, 10pm-3am Libertine, 37 Drake Street, Auckland City Door $10 before 11pm, $15 after 11pm R18 – licensed venue www.lickentertainment.com www.facebook.com/groups/licknewzealand Jacqui Stanford - 31st January 2014