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Bristol's Drag Scene

With a strong LGBTQ+ scene and love of theatre/the arts, Bristol is a hotbed for drag events and all kinda of gender fluid action. Most nights of the week you can see someone lipsync til they drop at the Queenshilling, Old Market Assembly or Zed Alley's own Punka drag show.

Expect and inclusive environment at most drag events, Bristol tends to be a very LGBTQ+ friendly environment with due care built up around its drag nights. Some of our favourite drag queens and drag kinds include: Ursula Major, Brizzle Boiz's Isaac Dix - veritable Ru Paul's of the West.

Buy tickets for drag events in Bristol

Our recent drag recommendations

Resusci-Anne drag you to the Jam Jar's haunted depths with stories of drowned heroines and pop culture phantoms, all told through a delirious, banjo-soundtracked blurring of experimental musical theatre, spoken word saga, and folk horror bardism. A weird, wet fever dream. A show about true crime and famous dead women, swims the line of gig-theatre, folk-tale, sea-shanty and long form spoken word.

It’s a Hellmouth-sized celebration at The Lanes as Punka go all out for their third annual cabaret-meets-clubnight The Buffy Ball. Come in your best Slayerverse dress-up for drag, dancing, Bronze-worthy indie rock from Broken Dreams Club, and a full live performance of all the musical episode hits. THEY GOT THE MUSTARD OUT! A Buffy The Vampire Slayer Themed Event & Club Night!

Exquisite folk from two Scots national treasures! Together they weave traditional tales steeped in the majesty of the past with original compositions imbued with the madness of modern times. There’s nothing quite like Alasdair’s guitar and Donald’s smallpipes FFO: Shirley Collins, Martin Carthy, Bert Jansch, Brìghde Chaimbeul. Donald and Alasdair will present a programme featuring a rich variety of pipe tunes with guitar accompaniment, as well as a broad selection of songs both traditional and original.

Another year, another audiovisual Halloween spectacular from Cellar Door, with twisted rockabilly punks Honk helming the hoedown – a prime slab of swampy, country-fried Mancunian garage FFO: The Gun Club, Country Teasers, early Jay Reatard etc. Loaded with support from new synth-addled psych oddities Ya Hablo, Brighton glam punks Austen Showers and moody indie folkers Dogsbody. HAUNTED HONKY TONK

What our editors say

“They will be joined by a couple of equally incredible and witty support bands and as always at Punka we will have a drag queen / king as a host for the evening keeping you all in line and singing some bangers.”
From: TWAT UNION + special guests TBA

“Mercy is the first Armand Hammer album since 2023's We Buy Diabetic Test Strips, a project that The Observer (UK) described as "an exceptional record that deserves your time and headphones" and The Line Of Best Fit deemed "their headiest and most impressive work thus far." On 2021's Haram, their first with The Alchemist, the duo "drag postcolonial wounds onto the examination table" (Pitchfork). Beats Per Minute called it "a tremendous success."”
From: ARMAND HAMMER

“Radstock duo Throb (T.H.R.O.B) drag the crowd into a swamp of sludge-soaked hardcore. With only guitar and drums, they unleash filthy, down-tuned riffs and punishing rhythmic weight. It’s abrasive, heavy as hell, and impossible not to feel in your ribcage — a perfect evening escalation.”
From: COFFIN FODDER // THROB // BYFORD DOLPHIN INCIDENT

“Rave classics reimagined with a live band in this tour de force through the tunes that shaped the 90s. A joyous collaboration between rave queen drag DJ Gaba Ghanoush, discotheque trumpeteer Tom Levick, the ethereally voiced synth and loops wizard Sophie Hyphae, with sharp beats from Mark Lilley of Svalbard on drums. Expect a selection of ecstatic singalongs, brassed up D’n’B bangers, and gritty energetic flavours to get you double-dipping your dancefloor crudités.”
From: Gaba Ghanoush And The Mixed Dips

“A large community of fans has been built up, now even larger, thanks to the digital distribution of their catalog, on all platforms. The recent reissue of the first album in 2023 was the opportunity to release an unreleased single After Laughter Comes Tears in 2022 on their new label Wita Records, and a second You’ve Got To have Freedom on the 10-year anniversary compilation of the Cologne festival Freedom Sounds. The desire, passion and friendship that still bind them together, and the desire to reconnect with their fans, lead them to continue the story, with the new drag'n'fly album.”
From: The Dynamics