Long called the “Neon Alley”, Soi Cowboy signs are getting even bigger and brighter with the advent of LED signage.
Five weeks ago, Shark Go-Go Club upped the ante in the Soi Cowboy signs battle, bringing its impressive Shark Pattaya frontage to Bangkok, albeit it on slightly smaller scale. On Saturday, next-door rival Baccara Bangkok responded, replacing its early 2000s neon sign with a larger, brighter LED sign with a modern typeface, instantly vaulting one of Soi Cowboy’s oldest bars into the 2020s.
Soi Cowboy Signs in Transition
Soi Cowboy signs are now very much transitioning eras or generations. Up until the end of 2001, “Soi Cowboy was very much Bangkok’s third bar area, attracting expats, particularly older guys,” Bangkok’s bar industry chronicler Stickman Bangkok wrote in a 2013 column about the history of The Dollhouse Bangkok.
“The huge neon sign outside The Dollhouse was the first big neon sign in Soi Cowboy. It would be closely followed by Suzie Wong and, when the Shark took over Jukes, and Baccara took over Bluebird (and later ate up Pam’s Bar), Soi Cowboy was on the map,” Stickman wrote.
In his opinion, Dollhouse’s “willingness to invest in and build a new bar in the middle of Soi Cowboy was the spark that led to the modernization of Soi Cowboy”.
Those bars would lead the way, but Soi Cowboy’s reputation as the Neon Alley was solidified by “The Arab”, an American who is, in fact, of Persian heritage and not Arab. But Thais called him that and Stickman picked it up and made the name stick.
The Arab at one point owned Our Place, Midnite, Deja Vu, and Spice Girls. Our Place and Kiss are gone, but they have been replaced by Rio and Venus. With massive neon frontages supplemented with colorfully lit front walls, these Soi Cowboy signs lit up the alley like Las Vegas. But locals and expats quickly learned all these bars were no-go zones where you were more likely to get ripped off or even beaten up by rogue security guards than have a good time.
The security scuffles all but ended before Covid, but the complaints about scams continue.
LED Replaces Neon in Soi Cowboy Signs
While impressive looking, neon signs are famously delicate and expensive to buy and keep running. The neon Soi Cowboy signs were always turned off when it rained. And Nana Plaza replaced its neon sign in 2017 with one of the first large LED signs in any bar area after rainstorms constantly shorted out the neon.
Seven years ago, LED signs were still too expensive to warrant replacing the Soi Cowboy signs, but the price of LED has plummeted in recent years as technology advances. And the 2020s boom in LED televisions led to the advent of huge LED advertising screens – most famously by Billboard and Butterflies in Nana Plaza – and then thin, programmable P3 LED screens that could be wallpapered across an entire bar front.
Venus was the first of The Arab’s bars to adopt the new P3 LED walls for his Soi Cowboys signs, but he has quickly upgraded all his bars to be virtual movie screens. He also has replaced all the dated neon with LED signage atop each bar.
That move was followed by the same design at Bad Beach, plus the huge new Soi Cowboy signs at The Dollhouse, Shark and, now, Baccara.
The holdouts of the Neon Era now stick out like sore thumbs. Walking down Soi Cowboy now, you can feel how old and dated Tilac, Long Gun, Jungle Jim’s, Fanny’s, Moonshine Joint, Toy Bar, Five Star and Suzie Wong look when put alongside the modern tech.
However, Suzie Wong, which shares ownership with Baccara, likely will be getting the same modern facelift very soon.
The oddball among Soi Cowboy signs is Rainbow, which falls between generations, neither neon or LED. Its frontage is the inexpensive, conventional lightbox, albeit with fluorescent bulbs behind red panels that are brighter than the old neon, but far less impressive than the moving images of the P3 walls.
The next step in the LED revolution is the move to P2 LED walls, which are brighter and have greater resolution and clarity than the current P3 generation.
On Top, the new go-go bar from the creators of Billboard and Butterflies, has covered the interior walls of the Nana Plaza bar with these P2 screens, offering a greater than 4K view of skylines from around the world. When the bar opens on Jan. 9, jaws will hit the floor.
Soi Cowboy signs are changing again and, for visitors, the visuals are only going to get brighter as we move into 2025.
