by Sam Merricks & Ben Cornford
RuPaul’s Drag Race took over the London Olympia last weekend (18th & 19th January) in a sickening marvellous extravaganza of a convention, with queens from the BBC Three series of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK and selected queens from the US series collided to meet fans at the first ever RuPaul’s DragCon event in London.
How the morning went down
The Olympia was buzzing since the VIP entrants come through to get early access and meets with the queens where they saw The Vivienne perform “Sweet Transvestite” from The Rocky Horror Show and “Walking in Memphis” by Cher before calling upon a 13 year old girl from Belfast, who had met The Vivienne at last DragCon event in New York and Sam to do a lip-sync to Sissy That Walk. All of us were winners and got free merchandise from The Vivienne.
Afterwards we had RuPaul, who was playing DJ later in the event, cut the pink ribbon to begin the festivities in the Olympia alongside fellow judge and Strictly’s Michelle Visage with the RuGirls surrounding them.
Soon came the glamorous “Pink Carpet” walk, where each of the RuGirls worked the carpet in gorgeous gowns and ensembles. A piece of Blu Hydrangea’s skirt hit me square in the face (ouch!) however, she looked phenomenal along with all the other queens.
What did people think of the event that were there?
During the queue to see All Stars 4 winner Trinity the Tuck, Ben spoke with a mother and daughter from Manchester. who were fans of the show, her daughter, only 8 years old, watched the show when she was 4 years old with her mother said Asia O’Hara, Season 10 US finalist, was her favourite.
To quote a saying that RuPaul says now and again on the show, “Drag Race really does bring families together” which was proven from this mother daughter duo.
How did we get on?
In our experience, we met an array of queens from both sides of the pond, Mrs Kasha Davis complimented Sam’s ‘snazzy’ pants. Scaredy Kat, who was the same age as Sam when filming Drag Race UK (19), called us both cute. Laila McQueen even shared her mints with us! All the queens that we were able to engage with were a delight.
It was joyful to see so many kids younger than us enjoy the event alongside us and it was also a pleasure to see small businesses who were selling items from berets, fans, custom postcards being so upbeat and loving the event.
Autographs
During our time with the queens, we even had the queens give our magazine with Taylor Swift on the cover a drag makeover with their signatures!
Overall, this was a joyous day out/weekend out for not just lovers of the show or drag, but even for the family! Drag Race as a franchise has made quite the splash over the pond in the UK. We can only hope for more seasons for the UK from the success of this convention and the first series.
Catch RuPaul’s Drag Race UK on the BBC iPlayer and the US series on Netflix.