The last Sunday of June is reserved for New York’s annual Pride parade, in which a few million people of all sexualities take over Sixth Avenue dressed in rainbows and draped in flags. But amid all of the celebration, it can sometimes be easy to forget that the whole month is the busiest time of the year for queer workers and artists. As more companies and organizations have embraced Pride, the demand for drag queens and other queer performers has only skyrocketed throughout the month, meaning most people are working at least double the amount they normally do, leaving them less willing to go out and participate in the plethora of Pride events throughout the city. But several of these individuals are noticing that the sheer amount of money they make in June, especially in comparison to other months, makes the grind worth it. Below, five queer workers share the realities of working hard during Pride Month.
Beaujangles, 33, she/her, drag queen
On working during Pride: Pride Month is just generally busy for everyone. I consider my nightlife job a full-time job because I probably work five nights out of the week, but this month, I only have three days off. I’d never usually work more than five days in a row, but during Pride Month, it’s kind of our hustle month. It’s just a very big month for queer performers and people in the industry, so we just have to make the best of it and milk it. Last year, I made about $19,000 during Pride Month, including tips. During a normal month, I make about $5,000.
On how Pride gigs differ from regular gigs: On average, I’m doing two to three gigs a night. This month, I have like 12 office gigs where I perform in an office. And it’s so awkward because you can hear your heels clacking, the music is never loud enough. It’s very different. Outside of Pride Month, we are performing for other queer people, whereas during the month we’re performing for mostly heterosexual people or companies. It’s a real switch once June 1 hits.
Eddie Baker, 26, he/him, bartender at Singers and Clandestino, and punk-band member
On his start: I’ve been working at Singers for about two years now, basically ever since the bar opened. I’m also in a band called Girl Dick, and we just performed at MoMA PS1 a week ago for their kickoff Pride event. It’s probably the biggest event that we’ve done in New York, and we don’t really perform so much. We only perform when we’re offered a really interesting and unusual gig. The last time we performed was last Pride Month at Twinks vs Dolls. We dressed like Army veterans, all wearing camo, and I was wearing a blood-soaked tank top with bullet holes to, you know, satirize nationalism. Immediately after, I had to go back to work a bartending shift and I had maybe two hours in between the performance and my bartending shift, so I just went to my friend’s apartment to lie down on his couch and cried because I was so exhausted. After my bartending shift, I wanted to go out and enjoy the festivities like everybody else, but I was there until the following afternoon. It was one of the longest weekends of my life.
On what Pride means to him: For me, Pride is more symbolic than anything else. It hits you over the head. I think certain people profit off of that ideology more than others, but for queer nightlife workers, for me, it means I get paid more. It means my band gets booked more. I’m also part of a party collective and we’re hosting a party at the end of the month. I’m given a platform to present all of the different things that I’ve been working on. In terms of the actual work I do as a bartender, it is really the normal grind, at a higher volume at a higher intensity. Because it’s also the beginning of summer, it’s this double whammy. But apart from making more money, Pride also means that I’m running around like a chicken with its head cut off. No rest for the wicked, I guess.
Dawn, 26, she/her, drag queen and contestant on RuPaul’s Drag Race season 16
On her start: At this point in my life, I’m a professional drag queen. I don’t think that I claimed that moniker until I was on Drag Race. Now drag is my full-time job and is the only thing paying my bills. I started in my hometown in Raleigh, North Carolina, and I moved to New York in July 2021. I came right after Pride, so my very first Pride in New York was a full year into living here, in 2022.
On working during Pride: An average drag queen will probably make double per gig and they’ll probably have twice as many gigs, making four times their normal income during Pride Month. Drag queens are the ones who are hustling and working during Pride Month so that everyone else can enjoy it. We’re entertainers; that’s our job. And I definitely think that there’s a trade-off between getting to enjoy Pride for yourself, while also wanting to take advantage of the opportunity to have as much exposure as possible.
Zora Jade Khiry, 26, she/her, worker/owner at Bluestockings and writer
On working during Pride: Everyone who works at Bluestockings is a worker and owner. We have a choice over how we work within this space, and how we interact with the community. We’ve had a lot of people come in who are looking for very specific things related to Pride, like books on nonbinary and bisexual people and stuff like that. And a lot of events. We still have our Narcan training, which happens every Saturday, but we have other events too. We had a Pride Book Crawl, which is a collaboration with other politically minded bookstores, just like a bar crawl but for books.
On trying not to burn out during Pride: I look at New York Pride as more of a marathon and not a sprint, so I have to balance out my time and energy. I have other writing gigs and nightlife gigs throughout the month as well, and I have to be thoughtful about balancing my work with going out and recognizing that I can’t make it to every single Pride event. I have a reading almost every weekend and a shift working the door for a rave this month as well. For a lot of queer artists, this month can be a mix of fun and pleasure, but also can be really stressful and hectic. It is the best time to make money. I’m making double the amount this month, and everyone pays me on time.
Erik Escobar, 30, he/him, events coordinator at Singers
On working during Pride: I’ve been at Singers for two years, and in my normal daily waking life, I’m producing events, handling emails, co-writing trivia, and a bunch of other random things at the bar. June is always, always a different crowd. It’s people visiting the city, tourists, people visiting from Hell’s Kitchen who want to go see what the next cool thing is. We have our regulars who are messy and then regulars who are cool as a cucumber. Every weekend is booked this month, and I’ve been at the bar every single day in some capacity since before June. As you get closer to Pride weekend, it’s like 80 hours a week working. I’m working a lot more in the daytime and during the weekends.
On business during Pride: The two biggest months for gay bars are June and October, for Halloween. I don’t want to sound super-cynical, but there’s only a couple times a year where there’s all this corporate straight people’s money floating around, and that’s the only time everyone’s in the mind-set to part with all their money, and we’re ready to take it. Every other month of the year is comparatively quite dry, especially for a lot of people who work in queer places. If we’re doing a really big event, we’ll maybe make an additional $6,000, but the bar is quite small and there are only so many bartenders we can have. Compared to a lot of places in Dimes Square or Manhattan, a slow night for them is very different from a slow night for us.
