The tale goes back to March, 1993, with an event called Leather & Lace '93, a fetish party held at the former Quality Inn on Ellice Avenue in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada.
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A student group on the University of Manitoba campus (U of M Skydive) held a fund-raiser party with a fetish theme to try to raise cash for its club. The event was such a success, that it warranted a sequel, Leather & Lace II held on July 9th of the same year. Realizing the potential of these events the leader of this student group, Daemon, decided to strike out on his own and hold the events himself.
The first of these solo projects was the sold out Hallowe'en goth party called "A Gathering Of Vampires" held at the West End Cultural Centre October 29th of '93. It featured local bands Ballroom Zombies, Scavenger Vacuum and Undertek. Named after a Sister Machine Gun song, LL3 "Sins Of The Flesh" was held in February '94 to coincide with Valentine's Day. This near capacity event featured Drag Performances, a lingerie fashion show and a human buffet performance piece.
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Sins of the Flesh started what became our continual conflict with local Liquor Act authorities. A local media personality was invited to the event by the company holding the fashion show. The next day in her newspaper column, she wrote that there was no end to "the paraphernalia at the fashion show they snuck past the Liquor Commission". We were never able to hold events at that location again.
In April '94, we held our second goth event, "Black Beltane". Featured were local bands Ballroom Zombies, Twisting Ground and Mung as well as a gothic theatre performance where we accidently burnt off the eyebrows of co-organizer, Chuck. Chuck's eyebrows eventually grew back and we began negotiations which would see The Crypt take residence at Club Happenings every second Friday. Every two weeks we would show up at the bar and build our make-shift dungeon. It served our needs for a while, until we were contacted by Wellington's nightclub. The deal became they take liquor, we take door and we got to decorate the place. We hired some local artists to do murals and we started building the cages and the dungeon.
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We had our retro nights, our goth nights and once per month was Fetish Night. The Liquor Commission, Fire Department, Health Department and Vice Squad all were under pressure to close us down. They never did. Unfortunately, realizing our success, the landlord attempted to double our rent as at this point we were controlling both liquor and door. We pulled a midnight move and bailed. A little while later, we held LL4 - "The Ascension", another Fetish Event while we planned our next move.
August '95 marked the opening of Die Maschine Cabaret in the Village, named after an old Kraftwerk album. The insides were done in a cybertech look and instantly it became the home of Winnipeg's underground. Within a year, though, all the original Crypt partners were gone, each selling off in turn to the investors we brought in to start the bar. Over the next year, we held LL5 - "When Angels Fall" and LL6 - "Dark Love" where we crowned Mr and Ms Winnipeg Leather. Come June, 1998, an old name resurfaced... The original home of The Crypt as a store was a small space in Winnipeg's Osborne Village. Our focus was primarily Gothic attire and Fetish clothing and accessories. We were in this spot for only one year. The location was too small, and so the following year we moved to our current site right below the old store. The Crypt continually grew and over the next two years opened our sister stores Eden Lingerie and Kick Shoe Company as well as opening our Body Piercing Studio. Our Tattoo Studio opened in Spring 2004 after a long search for an artist who was not only excellent at their artform, but who fit in well with the studio itself. Kick had been absorbed back into the main store by this point as the Crypt desperately needed the space and Eden, unfortunately, shut it's doors after 3 years of operation. In 2007, The Crypt opened its Kildonan Place location but without the ability to do tattooing or body piercing there, it wasn't going to work. The Crypt KP closed its doors in March 2008. In the fall of 2008 and again in the summer of 2009, management discovered some financial irregularities which lead to the termination of several staff. Though we struggled to keep going, the damage was too severe and we locked our doors for likely the last time in November of 2009.
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