The Gender and Sexuality Alliance Club (GSA) hosted its annual professional drag show on Nov. 7 in the Student Union and group members described it as a success.
The event was in the Volstorff Ballroom and sold over 160 tickets, according to B Wilson, the ex-officio for GSA. There were 10 performers.
Compared to last year’s show, which faced controversy and a backlash, this year’s drag show was “very, very calm,” said Michael Garofalo, Students’ Association Government Affairs chair. For this year’s show, the GSA hired a few UPD and BPD officers for security during the event because of the fallout of last year’s show.
“I saw two or three officers from UPD here, so that was very kind of them to donate their time to make sure everything went well,” Garofalo said. “The way that things were
shaping up, I did not have any concerns about any sort of interruptions or disturbances, so it’s always good to have that kind of insurance policy with security with an event like that, so that was nice to see.”
Along with added security, attendees bought tickets for the show and were asked to have their IDs and tickets checked before the event began.
Garofalo said that these changes allowed for a more positive discourse this year.
“There have been, you know, the odd Facebook comment or two underneath posts about it in Brookings politics,” Garofalo said. “Or even under the posts that the Collegian had about it, but this year I think it was a lot more positively received because they made sure the advertising was clear, that it was 18 and up, that IDs would be checked and tickets would be issued before the event started.”
Wilson said that the date of next year’s drag show event isn’t official yet, and it depends on the political climate due to the controversy that the event sparked last year.
“So far, this year, we have not seen anything going on, in terms of the media and the news and the internet,” Wilson said. “As far as we know, we are going to be putting on another drag show next year and make it better than this year.”
Garofalo said that he commends the GSA for hosting the show again, despite the uncertainty of facing similar reactions to last year’s drag show.
“[We] thank the university for letting us put it on this year,” Wilson said. “We really appreciate being able to do it.”
