The Ball, Canada's longest running pansexual fetish event, is calling it quits this weekend after 20 years.

"We're getting on (in age)," said Ball founder Master Bryan (a.k.a Dungeon Beast). "A lot of our partners that we were working with have died or retired and the hotel that we've held it in, the Osborne Village Inn, is up for sale. So we think it's a good time for us to retire and pass it along.

"We have confidence in some of the groups for the younger people that are coming up. They should be able to carry on just fine based on what we've built."

The last Ball will be held Saturday at the Osborne Village Inn, 160 Osborne Street. Over the last 20 years, the Ball has served as the cornerstone in building what organizers call "a rich and vibrant community for Manitobans who practice alternative sexualities."

"We did not dream that we would be this successful," said Master Bryan, who turns 58 next Tuesday and celebrated his 38th birthday at the first Ball ("Best birthday party I ever had"). "We were happy to do one or two events and we basically lived from event to event in the beginning, then we started building the community and it just gained momentum and grew."

According to a press release sent out Monday, the Ball provides a safe and welcoming environment for kinky folks to meet and learn about their chosen lifestyles. The ball event includes a bar, dancing, vendors and Manitoba's longest running public dungeon. Ball organizers are encouraging those who are curious but had never attended a fetish event to take advantage of the last opportunity to do so.

"Over 20 years, lots of stuff came and went in all the big cities and we just kept plugging away at it, decade after decade and we now span a little over a generation," he said. "There are people coming to The Ball who were conceived on the night of the first Ball or the night after which is pretty cool."

glen.dawkins@sunmedia.ca

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