The Rogue Valley Is Finally Building Its First Queer Nightclub

For a region that prides itself on being the artsy, welcoming corner of Southern Oregon, the Rogue Valley has been missing something obvious: a queer bar. The nearest one is in Klamath Falls, a mountain pass away. That may be about to change in a Medford basement, and it's one of the more important music-scene stories of the year even though not a single note has been played there yet.

As Jefferson Public Radio reported on Jan. 3, 2026, Daniel Tharp — owner of the local Rogue Party Bus company — is renovating the basement of a former nightclub called Ground Zero, which closed in the early 2000s, into an LGBTQ-focused club called Prism. He's assembled 19 co-investors, and at the time of the report the space was mid-renovation, with an opening he hoped to reach by the end of winter.

Tharp framed the stakes in a way that lands harder than a standard bar-opening story. Other rooms host drag shows, he told JPR, but those can be pulled under community pushback; "when the business is the queer community and our community, that's not going to happen." Whatever the eventual programming — DJs, drag, live sets, all of it — the pitch is a permanent, unapologetic space rather than a monthly night that exists at a straight venue's pleasure.

Why does a not-yet-open club belong in a music archive? Because venue infrastructure is the scene. Every valley's live-music health is downstream of how many rooms exist, who they're for, and who feels safe walking in the door. The Rogue Valley has amphitheaters and civic bandshells in abundance; what it has lacked is the small, identity-specific room where a subculture builds its own sound. Nightclubs like this are where DJs get reps, where drag performers turn a hobby into a craft, and where a scene that's currently scattered across one-off events gets a home address.

Renovations are slow and licensing eats money fast — Tharp said as much. But if Prism opens, the valley's map of live music gets a genuinely new dot on it. Watch this basement.

Sources: A group plans to open the first queer nightclub in the Rogue Valley — Jefferson Public Radio