We finally got around to ask our team leaders some questions! Kirsty is from the South of England, Sparkles (you might know her real name if you’ve met her, but for adulting reasons we’ll call her by her undercover unicorn name) likes to think she lives all over the UK, but is originally from Germany. Both are in their late 20s and met through this thing we call drag and it changed their lives forever! Read on as we talk about their own journeys, meeting each other and the craziest moments they have lived together.
How did you guys meet?
Kirsty: I think its baffling that I met people off the internet in general, but I met Sparkles through our friend Annie who is now our adopted mother! I had no drag friends and really wanted to go to a bunch of shows but alas knew no one. I’m not one to reach out to make friends, however, I really wanted to see Adore Delano, and saw Annie comment on something about a show, anyway I butted in about wanting to go to. Cut to her introducing me to Sparkles, we formed a group chat the three of us – The Adoricorns. By the end of that day, we had clicked so well we had arranged to do Dragworld together and had booked VIP for Adore’s birthday tour…… and we had never met! It sounds so cliche and corny, but when you meet someone that is the same as you, same values, ambitions and can have a laugh you cling to them tightly!! Sparkles literally puts up with all manners of my moods and my really really heavy sarcasm…. super trooper.
Sparkles: It was pretty much the same for me, I somehow got onto Stan Twitter and I’ve never looked back. I met Annie first and we bonded over our love for Adore Delano, before we decided to go to Dragworld together and the rest is history. Ever since, I’ve met so many amazing people through drag and all that comes with it and I’m honestly so grateful for that! Kiki is just the best DragAdventures team partner I could wish for and she will calm me down if I get stressed or turn into an emotional mess and start overthinking (especially prone to that after a M&G – anyone else?).
Annie is just our hippy mom and teaches us every day to trust the universe and honestly, it worked every time, ever since I actually made it on time for Adore’s Whatever gig in Brighton, I’ll never doubt the power of positive thinking again! Oh and I love how Kiki will just do the craziest things with me, let’s say, book Heels of Hell tickets for Glasgow because that’s the only gig I could go to (weekend bound adult over here, hi!) and then we realized how far it actually was we just went anyway – love her for that!
What made you start DragAdventures?
Kirsty: Well, I had started working from home freelance writing and at this point, we had already gone to so many amazing shows. I really wanted somewhere to write about them all, however, there was hardly any online publications with a proper drag niche for all ages, with a variety of content. Sparkles had been taking the most stunning photos, and after seeing Courtney Act’s ‘Girl From Oz’ show in London we were like wait why don’t we combine both our passions and make our own publication? A year later it’s amazing how far this has come already!
Sparkles: Yes, that’s exactly how it went down and I love how we have grown to be such an amazing team working together and doing what we love. For me, taking photos makes me feel so incredibly alive and happy and I’m also so grateful I get to share my writing with the world through this project we started – take that, A level English teacher that made me doubt myself all the way through highschool!
What is the craziest thing that has happened so far?
Kirsty: Crikey, so many things have happened. But for me the craziest isn’t a wild story, but the sheer fate of the whole weekend. We went to Holy Trannity’s DragTech in Manchester, the hotel we stayed in turned out to be housing the whole weekends worth of drag queens. The moment we checked in we bumped into Tammi Brown doing a facemask in the lobby. Jump to a few hours later us sat in the bar chilling and Trixie coming down to chill with a pizza and coke, I did so well as to not freak or Trixie scream in her face!
Sparkles: Oh yes, that weekend is one of my favorite memories too, for sure! (Laughs.) Have you ever had breakfast with basically all of your favorite queens around you, trying to be really casual and not annoy them, looking like a zombie because you had the fab idea of going out the night before? Also major shoutout to Cynthia Lee Fontaine for being one of the nicest people I’ve ever met and literally sharing her cough sweets with me at the M&G because she realized I was about to literally loose my voice! But, honestly, we have had so many cool, crazy, fun moments together!
When we got wo work press at Dragworld and interview Jinkx Monsoon, I had to pinch myself because I thought I was dreaming (laughs). Oh, also the story of the Brighton Whatever Tour gig is one for the books of our DragAdventures – when the M&G starts at 6pm and you’re still at a London airport by half past 2 but somehow still make it, that’s what I call a drag miracle!
Dreams for the future?
Sparkles: To take over the world with DragAdventures, my camera and Kiki so we can quit our adult jobs. But while we wait for this, I’m down with spending my free time in the UK and maybe taking a sabbatical in the near future so I can move to Manchester!
Kirsty: I’m just super proud of how much we’ve already achieved with the site. Not to much mention what an amazing team of contributors we have now, they all work hard to give well written feature pieces, review and articles to us we adore them.
Now the pageant answer is out the way, after working Dragworld as press and interviewing queens in person and just soaking it up. I’d love for us to be able to work press and work amongst that more. Alongside that I’d love for us to be able to turn our online publication full time and get to explore more U.K. drag as our jobs limit us to what we can actually travel to!
Favorite queen(s) and why?
Kirsty: I don’t like favoritism everyone is so talented…… now that I’ve said that I absolutely adore Trixie Mattel and Katya Zamolodchikova. They both have this aura that sucked me in, they’re both so insanely talented and show that laughter is the best medicine. Trixie’s humor and sarcasm is literally me to a T, along with her ambition and never giving up on her dream is so amazing….again cliche and corny. Katya, although zany. To me, she is full of fantastic wise words and is so clever, intelligent and all around legend, I can’t pinpoint one thing that draws me to her she’s like a whirlwind that just sucks you in and you can’t get out! And of course Miss Lydia L’ Scabies she is someone everyone needs to keep a big beady eye on as she’s the most talented little fleabag out there, her concepts for her aesthetic and shows are another level!
Sparkles: My top picks will always be Adore Delano, Willam, Rhea Litré, Phi Phi O’Hara and Aja. And yes, I know that’s more than three, but I’m just so bad a deciding (can I use the fact I’m a gemini as an excuse please?) Adore will always have a special place in my heart because she was the one getting me out of a very down phase of my life and showing me that you can be yourself even if you have to adult during the day to make that drag money. Willam ist just a fierce, funny and fabulously pretty woman who performs her songs on a goddamn hoverboard while wearing those beautiful blue strappy high heels I love so much. Rhea is my unicorn and I hope to see her in the UK more often.
Phi Phi is just so genuine and nice, and obviously talented af! And Aja, let’s just say this one is so special I won’t try and explain right here but you can just read the article I wrote about why you, too, should consider falling for this artist here. Also, of course, the whole Brighton gang: Joe Black, Lydia, Rococo Chanel and Alfie Ordinary!
What can’t be missing on your perfect pre-gig playlist?
Kirsty: I LOVE drag music so loud so the best for this will be Trixie, Aja, Sharon Needles and a whole bunch of others…….
Sparkles: We will literally listen to anything and everything made by our fave queens, depending on the mood but I’d say we’d always have to include Adore’s & Alaska’s ‘I look f*cking cool, Sharon’s Ouija Board, and all of Aja’s songs (yes, I know, since Heels of Hell the daily tally of mentioning Aja has risen through the roof but I’ve never been the sorry type – get it?)
Describe the other one in three words.
Sparkles: Oh, the first word that comes to mind about Kiki is absolutely supportive, super nice and sometimes very sarcastic (which has been the reason for some pretty funny moments because I don’t speak sarcasm very well – yet). No, but she’s literally so nice and puts up with my crazy ass moods (Hi, Gemini unicorn) and my emotional comedowns especially when I am running on little to no sleep after a show and step off the plane with the prospect of adulting in the morning. I call her my Mini Trixie, and I think that’s pretty accurate!
Kirsty: Lowkey, funfact and meow meow. Now if you haven’t met Sparkles be sure to hear these words perhaps every other sentence. Funfact being the main one (laughing) I would say passionate, and caring. She’s incredibly passionate about a lot of things and she cares a lot about people in general. Lowkey Caring passionately about everything is a good sentence to describe her!
How many adventures have you two been on together?
Sparkles: Oh my god, you know what – I honestly couldn’t even say! But considering the fact, I’ve been on a plane once a month since last August after Dragworld, I’d say there have been a few adventures we have gone on together and to be honest, I can’t wait for the ones to come! We have figured out the perfect drag show routine by now and whenever one of us is at a show on their own, it’s really weird because we are so used to one another (and also Kiki always lets me use her good Jeffree Star highlighter for gigs)
Kirsty: Pffft since we’ve only done this for a year and a bit we’ve done loadsss…. when you discover drag and you have a network of people to go with, you end up saying YES to a lot of shows. Whilst now we do kind of priotise things we definitely want to do now, although currently we’re already trying to juggle next year’s shows (laughing) Also personally what I’ve enjoyed the most about the shows is I’ve now been to some places in the U.K. I necessarily wouldn’t of perhaps seen if it wasn’t for drag shows!
What do you do in your free time?
Sparkles: Well, mostly living my drag obsession and hanging around on Twitter (yes, I know it’s bad but hey ho, adulting is annoying). I also love taking photos and making my friends model for me or just spending hours editing photos I took at shows. I also love seeing my friends and family and especially our family dog (laughs). Also let’s face it, most of my free time is spent hopping on planes to the UK for drag shows anyways.
Kirsty: Besides juggling work and creating content for the site. Free time is usually spent either going to gigs, trying to write more articles for a site I freelance for… here. Obvs seeing family and friends. Alongside that is trying to work my way through the gigantic stack of books I keep buying… I’m a big bookworm and more than likely bound to have two books in my bag wherever I go (Laughs)
Cats or dogs?
Sparkles: Although I consider myself to be a very fierce Meow Meow Unicorn (yes, that is inspired by Adore Delano), I’m 110% a dog person and I can’t wait to see my family’s dog again soon when I go home for Christmas this year.
Kirsty: Whilst cats are cute, it’s dogs all the way! I always wanted one as a kid and every Christmas hoped there would be one under the tree (Laughs) but last year finally got the love of my love, my little cockapoo Bertie. Best things in life our dogs!
Favorite quote?
Sparkles: My name is Sparkles and I’m here to f*ck shit up (thanks Aja for giving me that one), also I really like finding certain words and using them to the point where they’ll be in literally every sentence I say – latest top words were fun fact; lowkey and meow meow (thanks to Adore Delano) and of course, yolo (because I’m old and like to remind myself it can be over pretty quickly).
Kirsty: ‘If you have one leg in the past, and one in the future you’re pissing on today.’ A wise women said it (Katya) and since I’ve heard it, the more it makes sense. Think everyone can agree they focus too much time worrying about things it ruins the now, so applying it to life actually works… who’d have thought?
If you had to pick a queen to represent the other one, which one would you pick and why?
Kirsty: This should be easy as Sparkles is literally a combination of her favorite queens. But I think most definitely Adore, as she sees the best in literally everyone she meets. If you see her at a show, I can go to the toilet come back and she’s made about 4 friends talking about the most random things. Not only that but like Adore she doesn’t really care what people think, and most deffo is a hippy at heart.
Sparkles: Omg watch me getting all emotional now – but yes, Adore IS my spirit animal and I wish I could be a hippy full time – well, maybe one day and then I’ll move to Manchester and go dance on Kiki’s (not this one, but the club on Canal Street) rainbow floor! But like I said above, Kiki defo is a Mini Trixe- looks amazing in pink and her sarcasm can rival Miss Mattel’s any day. But also, I’d say that Kiki definitely also has a side of her absolutely favorite Brighton queen Lydia L’Scabies about her – a penchant for the dark side of things but with a bit of sparkle added to it!
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