by Juan Jocom
A gaggle of drag kings from across North America is about to take over Skylark Cafe & Club over the weekend of Sept. 19–21 for the Emerald City Kings Ball.
After the success of its first three-day festival last year, and following the positive feedback from their two-day event in 2022, the Seattle drag king duo Jabriel Gaymess and Sherwood Ryder are bringing the ball back bigger and better. The festival is set to return with a total of 42 local performers alongside out-of-state kings from Ohio, Virginia, California, and Canada to celebrate the ever-growing drag king community in the Pacific Northwest.
Born from a dressing room conversation, the Emerald City Kings Ball is the brainchild of Gaymess and Ryder, inspired by their desire to create a platform and representation for drag kings. According to Ryder, the ball spotlights BIPOC, gender non-conforming, and transgender individuals who are underrepresented on the drag scene.
“If you look around, everything is predominantly drag queen-dominated — from the TV shows to your local shows to massive Pride events … We need more representation,” Ryder said.
Beginning his involvement with the ball as an audience member, Harley Sayne, a Seattle king, is now one of the producers and media managers for the event. According to Sayne, they received 82 applications for this year, compared to 58 in 2023.
“It was kind of tough going through them all. We wish we could accept everybody, but we only have a certain number of slots per night. So it was a really tough choice to figure out the lineups,” Sayne said.
One of the performers, Percy Pegg, a Vancouver king performing on night two, only started doing drag in recent years and wishes they had seen the kind of representation that exists today when they were younger.
“It takes seeing an example out there for folks to understand and be inspired. To reach for that art themselves … All that comes down to is being visible, so I’m hoping that young queer people and young aspiring drag kings can see all of us out there killing it and be inspired to do the same,” Pegg said.
According to Ryder, audiences can expect to see an array of styles, from sexy to comedic to thought-provoking performances that challenge masculinity.
Heathen, a Vancouver-based king performing on the first night, will deliver a deeply personal piece dedicated to his partner, a fellow drag king who passed away last year.
“He was supposed to be at the festival last year, and the number I’m doing is a dedication to him, to how I feel now having to continue doing drag without him,” Heathen said.
While there is a competitive element between the kings competing to be the next high king supreme, Ryder emphasized that the event is ultimately about community and visibility. “It’s everyone’s chance to come in and see local kings they may not know, and kings from different states they’d never have had a chance to see otherwise,” Ryder said.
Looking at the future, Ryder hopes this will be the start of a bigger movement within the drag king community, where kings get the recognition they deserve — recognition that mainstream media has yet to provide.
“Kings are great, we sell out venues, and we’re incredible. We can do all the same things and more, and yeah, it would be nice to see growth in that,” Ryder said.
Emerald City Kings Balls tickets are available at their official website.
Juan Jocom is a Seattle-based Filipino journalist who writes about arts and culture focusing on queer culture and drag. His work has appeared in Real Change, The Ticket, UW Daily, The Nudge, and The Seattle Collegian. He swears he’s not obsessed with bikes but it’s all he thinks about.