Best of Best in Drag Show 2026 at the Orpheum

Best in Drag Show has been raising money in Los Angeles for more than three decades, and this year it's running a greatest-hits edition. BEST OF Best in Drag Show brings six former winners and runners-up back to the Orpheum Theatre on Sunday, October 4, to fight over the Miss Best in Drag Show crown one more time. If you're sorting through things to do in Los Angeles that also put your money somewhere useful, this one's easy to justify.

The show

It's a beauty pageant parody, played with a straight face and dressed way over the top. Expect huge costumes, characters the queens have built over years of competing, a panel of celebrity judges, and a few surprises the producers keep quiet until curtain. Nobody on this bill is a first-timer. The listing doesn't name the six queens yet, so you'll have to find out who made the cut when the lights go down.

Every dollar from the show goes to Alliance for Housing and Healing, the housing arm of APLA Health. Alliance provides housing services to people living with HIV and other serious health conditions. The giving doesn't stop at the ticket, either. Each program comes with a donation slip, and during the show the Pinkies work the aisles collecting them with swimming pool nets. Bring cash if you want to throw bills at the stage. If you forget, there's a cash exchange ATM inside the theater.

Timing and tickets

Doors open at 5:30 PM for a pre-show reception, and the show starts at 7 PM. Eventbrite lists the evening wrapping up around 9:30 PM. Cash bars run throughout the lobby from 5:30, but there's no food for sale, so eat first.

Tickets run $25 to $500 on Eventbrite. The top tiers, Diamond Tiara and Ruby VIP, get you into a catered reception in the Diamond Den and Ruby Room from 5:30 to 6:45 PM. VIP guests pick up a wristband at the VIP entrance. Tickets arrive by email (nothing gets mailed) and they're non-refundable. The organizers say the humor is edgy and adult and isn't appropriate for younger kids, so plan a sitter.

Getting there

The Orpheum is at 842 S Broadway in the Broadway Theatre District, a few blocks south of Pershing Square. The Metro B and D lines stop at Pershing Square station, which is the easy way in on a Sunday night. Drivers will find paid lots and garages around 8th and 9th Streets. The theater is wheelchair accessible, and the organizers ask anyone who needs a wheelchair spot inside to contact them ahead of time through the Eventbrite listing.

The building helps. It opened as a vaudeville house in 1926, and the restored gilded interior suits a pageant that takes its sequins seriously. Browse more downtown LA events or the arts and culture calendar for other Things Happening In Los Angeles this October.