RuPaul’s DragCon returned for its third glorious year at the Los Angeles Convention Center this weekend. With more than 200 vendors, special guests and exhibitors, DragCon is easily the world’s largest event celebrating drag culture and all things RuPaul’s Drag Race. With attendees from across the country and the globe, it was a multicultural celebration of drag and the LGBTQ community at large.
For more than 40,000 fans of the wildly successful reality show, DragCon was a unique opportunity to get up close and personal with their favorite queens from the past 9 seasons of Drag Race. The show's fandom is as strong and committed as any group of geeks you’d find at Comic Con—fans waited in massive lines spread out across the exhibition hall for a chance at an autograph or a selfie, with their lovingly crafted fan art and gifts in hand.
Spread out across 210,000 square feet, DragCon wasn’t just a dream gathering of drag superstars; it was also a dazzling emporium of all the drag paraphernalia a queen could ever need—makeup, glitter, feathers, jewels and wigs in every size and dizzying color were available for purchase. Aspiring queens and established stars alike could be found trying on breastplates and corsets at every booth.
While the most stunning attractions were obviously the queens on the floor, there was also an array of panels for visitors to sit in on, discussing everything from drag and resistance in the Trump era, proper “tucking” techniques, and the art of comedy in drag.
With a surprisingly youthful audience, RuPaul’s hit TV phenomenon has reinvigorated the world of drag and guaranteed that the art form’s future rests in good hands.
All photographs by Natasha Aftandilians
