 Hello everyone and welcome to Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat. I'm Doug O'Keefe. I am the host and the producer of the chats with Mistress Joanne Gaddy. The Fireside Chats are a program of the Leather Archives and Museum. Now today I have the privilege of an interview with Glenn Rosseter, who is in New Zealand. Glenn, in what town are you located? The 45 minutes drive out of Christchurch, which is one of the four larger cities in New Zealand, in a little town called Little River. Little River, New Zealand. Now Glenn Rosseter is the founder, the organizer, producer, all around caretaker of an organization called The Christ Church Fetish Ball. And Glenn, you've been doing this how many years? I'll be going on 21. Okay, about 21 years. That's pretty good. Before we explore that in depth, though, I want to take a quick step back. Tell me a little bit about your growing up in your family and your life in New Zealand. Standard family. Standard house on the outskirts of the city. Least school went to a standard job. I don't know. What depth would you like me to go into? Were you even aware of the fetish community, the fetish scene when you were growing up? No. I had reasonably boring jobs for quite a long time. And then it would have been mid-80s, I guess. I got a job with my partner at times. Father was a maintenance technician at the Christchurch Polytechnic. He got me a job working at a company over the road from Polytech, which did all sorts of metalwork left there to go work at the Polytechnic itself as a maintenance technician. Which my ex-father-in-law got me a job as well. But while I was there there was a student radio station which I thought would be quite cool to secure myself a spot on and play some of the music that I was fond of at the time which was Punk Rock. I managed to get a 2-hour spot on a Sunday night called at the Punk and Hardcore Show and my friends and I would get on the air and do what we wanted for 2 hours 7-9. So how did you conceive of the fetish ball? It probably follows on from having a show actually because the program manager, the boss at the radio station thought it would be a good idea if we could get a sponsor on board. One to help cover some of the very minor costs involved and two just to get other people in the city involved in the presence. That kind of thing. So I approached a retail clothing store in Christchurch that had just popped up called Hunters and Collectors which turned out to be a very successful enterprise for him over the years. He's only just in the last six or eight months or so and finally closed the doors on the store for good. Hunters and Collectors would buy and sell second hand goods like footwear, clothing, leather jackets, jewelry, more alternative like the rockers and the meatlers would be in there buying the letters and studs and all the trinkets and things that go with it. So Jason and I hit it off immediately and I ended up eight years later leaving Christchurch, probably he can go and work with him. So with going into retail quite different from the previous path I've taken which was I guess the engineering and maintenance so it was another nice change in life hanging out with the alternative crowd so that kind of helped me not following on from playing punk rock on the radio but following on with playing music that appealed to people to a wider audience and myself in the bedroom. How did you take that and apply it to the creation of the fetish ball? With Christchurch having a really good night life at that time there were new clubs and bars popping up everywhere all the time while others went under for whatever reason or reopened with a facelift. There was a nightclub opened that shop Royal worked called the liquor lounge and the liquor was spelled L-I-C-K-E-R and was owned by a couple of people who were popular in the underground nightlife scene and were very well known for their sociable and sometimes outrageous events and things. They put on an event in the 1990s and it was called the libido ball it was invite only it was a themed event costume essential kind of thing they had live acts performances and it was a hell of a night it was fantastic and I thought this is great that everyone wants to get into and with these EG I mean looking back there weren't pushing many boundaries with the types of performances they had but this potential you know what I mean and time went by and they decided to do another one they called it kinky disco this time and it was a similar sort of thing they didn't enforce the dress up code so much because this might have been close to a year later and bars and clubs I don't know if it's everywhere but in Christchurch particularly seemed to have a finite period of popularity whether they were starting to worry on that front that they were starting to lose the crowd or at least a few people and kind of ruined the vibe was not having such a high standard of dress and then they tried again and it did not work half the crowd were not dressed up the ratio of the people that should have been there and the people that should not have even been allowed on the door was way wrong and it was the last time they tried and then about that time I was getting quite a few gigs and bars and clubs playing dance music and I had a couple of residencies at a couple of bars in the city and one of them had an upstairs bar which held I guess 150 people or so and the bar manager decided to do an event similar to what the liquor lounge had put on and a compilation they called that one and similar thing first one was great, second one not so good, third one flopped so at that point I thought this needs to be done right and with me being a stickler for things that I know that if they're going to work then they'll keep working if you're uphold standard I created the first ball and the night club that was now in the space that used to be the liquor lounge, new owners, new everything and used that as the first venue that held 150 people I got 120 through the door, great night everyone had a blast and about nine months later I guess I did another one there was a queue outside the door at 11 and so that filled up pretty quickly there were people in the queue that were trying to get in knowing they wouldn't because they weren't dressed up and turned in way and they kind of understood but then there were people that knew me because I was busy in town and everyone knew me and then oh come on Glen you can you let me in sorry bro you're not dressed up what were you looking for as far as dress up? it's not a normal club night you don't turn up in your normal club outfit it's a little bit different if someone can't bring himself to improvise or even hire something that looks mildly different improvise with some accessories but people didn't quite get it and they were thinking that because I had my friend and I'd let them in and they'd come back next time and from that just our standard tried to inevitably there are one or two to slip through it I don't know how but that'll be. Was this a dress code that was published previous to entry so people knew what to expect? Yes and was it simply a cloud outfit? A cloud outfit if they had the right attitude and the right means of bringing that cloud into a kinky environment and making fit in and what would those have been? A naughty streak yeah I mean it's a really hard to define that has such a broad there's no line in the sand you can't say you're good and you're not because the one that's not always argue but I've done this and he didn't do that so it's a really hard one I mean if I could impose an attitude code then that would probably be easier but it's again it's another hard one to police Let's take one step back British why that as opposed to anything else? Oh I had a ring to it I think and probably at that time nothing more than that it was I mean I modeled over a few different titles and I just sounded it ran off the end of the tank nicely it had an edgy ring to it and it was something that people could possibly relate to if they allowed their inhibitions to to let them try something different How did you market to people who might have been shy about this kind of thing or concerned about being in public in their kink in the early days it wasn't so much the the underground that I was appealing to or that were even taking notice it was more the central city clubbers that wanted to get their gimp on for the night and have a bit of fun doing something different I didn't really start off looking to attract the there is no real there's no cohesive group in Christchurch or that I know of anywhere in New Zealand that get together regularly That makes me wonder then in a rather small country are people closeted more with any kind of fetish that they may enjoy Never used to be but I'll talk to you about that I guess the ball as it gained in popularity people that weren't in the central city night club seen, started to notice or hear about it I was getting some quite good press from the local mainstream newspaper writers that did columns on the central city night life, the bar life and things like that they would after the ball in the early days after they would generally have a rewrite up in the paper about the event that had just happened so I guess there were a few people that hadn't even heard of the fetish ball that they read something that it's just been on like next year it was building it slowly rather than launching into trying to appeal to everyone and trying to get them to drop their inhibitions immediately and turn up in fetish gear and stand in a queue on the side of a busy central city street waiting to get in but that did happen the first event 120 people then went up to about 150 the next one the next year about 180 and every year I chose a new venue so it was always at that time there were I'd have maybe three or four different venues to choose from that would be happy to host the ball just not every venue of course was whether that changed as well over time so it grew over time it evolved do people travel from other parts of the country people travel from around the world the performers that I've had have been a major part of that like I'd only used local performers for the first two, three years and then once I knew that I was guaranteed to get the numbers that I needed to cover my budget then I started looking further afield which at my first point of call was the Sydney Hellfire Club so flew four of them over for a night of shenanigans and they were fantastic yes Jackie and I spoke previous to me doing this interview with you she mentioned how much she enjoyed attending the fetish ball and she mentioned a scene that sticks with her very very strongly a suspension scene tell us about that it's so profound I've always tried to push the boundaries of not just what's legal and what's not in public but what is appropriate and I've always in that trying to push boundaries I don't mind pushing too far and having some people go that's not me the response I want sometimes is to just bring people out of their shell sometimes in a shocking way but we've had flea shock suspensions all sorts of piercings, peggings, spankings, floggings, everything I guess involved in the BDSU inside of things but also I mean I could reel off a dozen or so performers that have flown in from all corners of the globe Mark and Flygill from Australia as well they do shabari, right, suspension they're very dynamic on stage which is brilliantly the first time I flew them over they just went wow this is amazing Lucas Spera from France who is an American born French girl who spent most of her life, grew up in Japan so she is a very highly trained kumbaku and shabari teacher and educator and performer along the lines of Midori, I've had Midori over and Kumi Bridget Harrington or Lee Harrington as he's referred to now Sarah Sloane I'd have to have a look back through some of the people that I've flown over Where's been the furthest that someone's come I think probably would have been Lucas and Satomi flying in from France one night was probably I'd say the furthest that I've had someone I don't question everyone that arrives as to where they've come from so I couldn't say but a regular contingent from the North Island and people that have planned their time off at work over flying from Australia to New Zealand for the event happens quite often so I've managed to publicise this without losing perspective of who you want to be able to come. You don't want people turning up in street clothes how do you promote it in order to gain the elements that you want A combination of website work on poster, flyers word of mouth, reputation any media that publishes anything I basically say to them that if you want to do an article or something on the ball then it'd be nice if you could put this across for me. So it's a combination of everything really. The poster, if someone took the poster and took everything off it or the text or the design or anything else the original image probably wouldn't be allowed on the street How have venues responded to you when you've wanted to rent the space? Once I was established say 2-3 years after the first one I would have, I could choose any venue in Christ Church. Going from 120 people to the peak which would have been up around for about 5 years running before the earthquake so I was getting about 1000 people through the door so there were only 2 venues in Christchurch that were licensed for 900-1000 people that had the decor and the fit out everything that I could make work for the night there were other venues that were either too sterile or conference like or would take too much effort to reach up Ministry nightclub was the one probably the best of the lot and then the Civic which was a historic building on one of Christchurch's main streets beautiful facade grandiose pillars and main entrance and steps walking up and then balcony it was like a neo-gothic it was a beautiful building but that's gone unfortunately I'm wondering how race comes into this because all over the world there are different things about people of different races in the fetish community and sometimes there's a lot of acceptance sometimes there isn't how is that seen in New Zealand I don't know if race comes into it over here we're a multicultural society in New Zealand although predominantly white Anglo-Saxon European descent with the other high proportion being Maori which was New Zealand indigenous people I don't think there's any prejudices or preferences I think everyone just gets along Why are you choosing not to do it this year? When you put so much in for so long and you are committed to an event happening regardless of what's going on with the outside world you have to make it work and with COVID lurking in the background we could be locked we could go into lockdown almost to refund everybody's board tickets I've used different methods of promoting the ball over the years in the early days I would have 5,000 flyers printed and then four weeks before the event I'd head off into Central Christ Church with four people the whole central city zigzagging every street every side street every car that was parked in the central city for that night being a Friday or a Saturday we'd put a flyer under the windscreen wiper and we'd get rid of 2,000 to 3,000 flyers in a night I mentioned earlier that we used to open the doors at 11 and we'd go through door 5 or 6 in the morning but with the council now having a whole different set of rules so drinking and socialising out in public most night clubs generally need to close it around between 2 and 3 o'clock so I opened the doors earlier now and I opened the doors at 9 and it's normally busy by 10 peaking at about midnight to 1 and then kind of peatering out around 2.30 and then closing over 3 even out of the venue by 3. It's a shame because things start to get really funky at about 5 o'clock in the morning everything changes once the flyer by night has left Sounds like you don't have the same lockout laws that Australia suffers I don't know of I've heard that they've got some rules and regulations that have gone down too well with the public but I don't know exactly what they are, whether or not you leave one club and you're not allowed to go back in It doesn't sound like you've got that problem which is good to hear I think at one point they did try and implement something like that but I don't know, I couldn't comment I'm not a regular on the city nightlife anymore I live out in the country and really the only thing I do in the city is the ball Now what is the best thing you've ever seen at the fetish ball and what is the worst thing that you've seen at the fetish ball? Some of the performers have just been stunning, absolutely stunning If you get a chance to look at Satomi's website should still I think be tokyolovedoll.com She's an amazing performer, she's dainty very heavily tattooed stunningly beautiful and could tie someone three times her weight and suspend them She's done a couple of solo performances that I'd say would be among some of my highlights What's the worst thing you've seen at the fetish ball? If someone's going to the ball for the first time and they've made an effort to get dressed up no matter how much they want to they're not allowed to do being untoward or breaking rules people don't want to get kicked out they're in there having a time of their lives seeing things that they've never seen before not many people will be so stupid as to break a rule and be thrown out The worst thing the usual characters, the usual perverts that turn up one guy that we call him the perpetual masturbator sitting on the corner watching and doing what he does he doesn't bother anyone, no one bothers him he's almost like part of the furniture now I can't think of anything that stands out as being bad enough to call it one of the worst You're taking a break this year Where do you hope to see the fetish ball in the next five years maybe? Probably the same place it was five years ago just continuing on current trajectory I doubt if I'll ever get a thousand people through the door again The night life the night life in Christchurch is just not I don't know whether it's the economy or the council bylaws and rules and regulations on drinking on the street or whether it's people have matured I don't know what it is, I can't pinpoint it but the night life, the scene in Christchurch has just changed Now do you think taking a break this year will impact future participation? I don't think so, I don't think it's in a negative way anyway I've had people contact me every week asking if I'm doing one this year and where it is and when it is and the details So there are definitely people that are looking forward to it and I've just got, I need to climb off the back bigger and better next year and they're looking forward to it It'll be put more effort in at the start of promotion and people back that may have drifted and continue working to get new ones into the scene I've been asked by a little birdie to ask you to explain for us what sweet as bro means I think it's the Kiwi term Ozzie's probably know what we're talking about as well, but sweet means great good, but you don't use that word in the States or anywhere over that way Sweet? We do but I think the connotations are probably a bit different A bro is like brother, a short for brother Sweet as bro is good as gold mate Sweet as bro could say it another way could be good as gold mate Okay So I would like to thank you Glenn very very much for joining Inside Leather History of Fireside Chat You're the first person I've been able to include from New Zealand and I'm very grateful