RuPaul’s DragCon made its way back to the UK for a booming Friday and Saturday at the ExCel in London but in the shadow of The Vivienne’s death, was the convention able to meet expectations?
James Lee Williams also known as The Vivienne passed away on January 5th, less than a week before one of the UK’s biggest celebrations of drag, and it was a loss many in the queer community struggled to truly comprehend.
DragCon went ahead as scheduled but with an extra honour in its dedication to The Vivienne’s career and lasting legacy as a UK drag legend.
DragCon was created and started in LA by RuPaul as an outgrowth of her hit television show RuPaul’s Drag Race and is billed as a “convention that celebrates the art of drag, queer culture and self-expression for all.”
RuPaul’s Drag Race now exists as a worldwide franchise and has generated spin-offs in 13 other countries, creating what RuPaul now calls the ‘Drag Race Universe’ or the ‘Runiverse.’
With DragCon returning to the UK after its hiatus due to the pandemic the event has only grown bigger. Last year more than 175 queens were in attendance and while we don’t have a total count for this year the event arrived at a time in which coming together as a community was more important than ever.
Hordes of Queens from all over the world and across all international Drag Race franchises gather at DragCon to meet fans queuing for their precious time.
First coming to the UK in 2020, DragCon took place at Olympia, an exhibition space in west Kensington but had to take a hiatus due to the Covid-19 pandemic, only returning in 2023.
After taking notes on large crowds and queues DragCon decided to change the event venue to the larger Excel Centre in Newham for a more comfortable experience.
Two booths were set up in dedication to The Vivienne and Cherry Valentine who passed away three years ago in September 2022, two queens whose impact on the industry was undeniable.
Attendees were encouraged to sign the walls of The Vivienne’s booth in respect and to write any messages they had never got the chance to tell her personally.
Losing two UK drag legends who audiences all over the world had the pleasure of meeting and seeing blossom on the show has been devastating to Queens but especially to the artists who were on the first season of RuPaul’s Drag Race UK with The Vivienne and had developed a sisterhood.
Despite the solemn news the convention had a palpable energy of perseverance and an emphasis on reminding the ones around us that we love them.
We do not know the cause of The Vivienne’s death, but the Queens used the opportunity to encourage fans to check in with one another.
Attacks on the queer and trans community have been escalating and so the ethos of the event felt more poignant than years before. However, being there brought attendees to question whether this ethos of love and acceptance was at odds with the way in which the convention is run.
As the Drag Race universe grows every year DragCon becomes an ever-bigger business. The weekend of DragCon is the final stretch of a gruelling week for Queens from all over, setting up personal yet aesthetically pleasing booths, maintaining lines, selling merch and making enough money to make a profit.
Attendees are funnelled into the event space through the main entrance and welcomed to the convention, a pink carpet runs through the convention centre leading straight to the mainstage, all styled after Hollywood Boulevard with the Queen booths lining each avenue.
This year’s most anticipated Queens included names like Alyssa Edwards, Kyran Thrax, Sasha Velour and Jimbo who all spent the weekend with stacked lines, as well as co-host and main judge Michelle Visage.
The US cast of RuPaul’s Drag Race Season 17 were all in attendance to promote Wow Presents Plus, the dedicated streaming site for all things RuPaul’s Drag Race.
The queue to meet the cast was one of the biggest queues of the weekend and was only accessible to Wow Presents Plus subscribers: this was the same for the Drag Race Universe section of the convention which had various smaller-sized booths dedicated to Queens from the international iterations of RuPaul’s Drag Race.
Rebecca, a drag fan from Hull, was disappointed that she wasn’t able to meet the new cast: “If it was further in the series, we would’ve waited in that queue to see them but we just felt like we hadn’t seen enough of everyone and you’re meeting them as a group so it’s a bit more difficult to have that sort of personal experience, we actually watched some of the meet and greets and saw there wasn’t really a lot of conversation it was just take the picture and go, so yeah, we decided against it.”
This is where the competitive energy of DragCon is palpable. With these kinds of events, there is always a hierarchy and with the new cast of the mainstay iteration of the show being there, there is definitely a sense of celebrity.
The irony is that at one point in time, every working Queen at the convention had been in that limelight, paraded around as one of the new season Queens. Being on the new season of Drag Race will bring you fame and recognition for a certain amount of time but it’s going to these conventions and building a strong community and fanbase that actually ensures your longevity in the industry.
DragCon’s standard arrangement is that fans have to spend a specific sum of money to meet and take photos with a Queen. The most common merchandise sold at the convention are signed prints, T-shirts, totes, and badges.
“To be fair I was expecting it to be worse, Trinity The Tuck was the one queen I was desperate to see and I’d said I would go up to £60 to see her but she was only £30, Angeria was £40, that’s the highest we’ve seen,” says Jo, a fan from Bristol who had met seven Queens on the Saturday.
“And we haven’t had to queue for long, the only one we’ve struggled with was Michelle Visage, we were in there for an hour and it hardly moved but everybody else has been quite quick.”
One thing that did prove a struggle was the lack of consistency between booths. Queens are personally in charge of their schedule, what days and times they will be at their booth for pictures, their minimum spend if they choose to have one and whether they will provide two lines, one for general admission ticket holders and another for VIP tickets, though not every Queen is required to have a VIP ticket line.
The drag artists are very much in charge of their experience and the experience they provide fans, but this freedom of choice did affect the accessibility of the event for certain attendees.
Mars, who came to DragCon from Lincolnshire, described the struggles they faced over the weekend “I’ve spent a lot of my DragCon just sitting on the floor, I’m loving the atmosphere and I don’t mind meeting less people but It’s really hot in here and I’m semi-prone to fainting because of certain health issues, I suffer with PoTS, acid-reflux with anxiety, autism, ADHD so yeah spending the whole day on my feet in line isn’t the most comfortable for me.”
Mars is a self-described superfan but noted certain issues with the convention that affected their access to a comfortable experience “They need to stop making the accessibility line and the VIP ticket line one and the same, and please put seats next to the accessibility lines, only one booth has offered me a chair.”
Mars came to the convention with their friends Morgan and Joey but had to put in the work to make sure they were not falling behind because of their health issues.
“The staff haven’t been super helpful for me, I kept trying to find the toilet and security were yelling at me because I was in the wrong area, its things like that that make coming to this kind of events something I have to work a lot harder for,” Mars’ friend Joey explained to me.
“The people working at the individual booths have been a lot nicer, great at chatting to people as well because they’re in the industry and friends of the queens whose booth they’re running.”
Drag Race UK Season 5 winner Kyran Thrax’s partner began a conversation with Mars, Joey and Morgan. It was clear Mars and their friends were fans enough of some of the Queens at the convention that they were recognised and treated like friends. It was moments like this that showed how important this convention is for people; these attendees aren’t just fans of a show but are integrated as part of a community.
Joey explained how they run the @BadlydrawnKyranthrax account on Instagram and Mars described the intricate fan edits they had made for one of their favourite queens Pearla and that they are recognised for these contributions to the fandom.
Social media has become a huge part of the drag industry and not only are these fans keeping the name of these Queens alive but they’re also providing them with content. Gone are the days of fan-art when fan-edits blow up on TikTok and are ravenously shared by fans hoping for a repost from their favourite Queen and getting that one step closer to being recognised not just as a fan but as a person.
DragCon UK 2025 is a hub for this kind of miraculous connection. Unfortunately, social media is sometimes the only way young queer people are able to find their community but a convention like DragCon gives queer youth a sanctuary and the chance to bond with the Queens building it.
Featured image by Ethan Thompson.