Categories

How Categories Work:

Vogue balls are competitive events rooted in Black LGBTQ+ ballroom culture, where participants compete in different categories, each with its own theme, rules, and criteria for judging.

These categories are meant to celebrate self-expression, identity, fashion, dance, and performance.

Take a look at the this ball’s categories and get ready to SERVE.

European/All American Runway

“The cameras caught a figure in motion, a blur slipping through the frame, masked, untouchable. No clear face. Just presence. Just movement. Just undeniable style cutting through the scene. The ski mask wasn’t a disguise, it was an effect, a choice, a fashion moment. And tonight, the runway belongs to the ones who can turn mystery into mastery. Let your walk speak. Let your fashion cut through. The mask doesn’t hide the serve, it sharpens it."

Bring it Runway with a ski mask, but don’t forget the fashion. The look must command the floor. Precision of the walk, strength of the presence, and the style to turn heads. You are the blur the cameras couldn’t catch, now they wish they could.

Male Figure realness
(Butch Queen [BQ] /drags)

Bqs are notorious for their schemes and plots. An artifact has gone missing and management believes it was one of the workers. Slide under the radar with your security guard uniform and don’t bring suspicion to yourself with any butch queen antics. Bring an artifact that belongs in a museum  and don’t unveil it until after management gives you your 10’s.

Female Figure REALNESS
(Fem Queen [FQ] /drags)

Many of the girls will do whatever it takes to be more fab. But nobody would suspect the art director to risk her career for some side cash. Prove to us it was actually an inside job from the art director herself and walk down the runway in your best corporate attire. Will you walk home with a hefty downpayment for your new life or will you lose your benefits and career?

Performance:
Twist vs Butch Queen Vogue Fem vs GENDER NON-CONFORMING vs
Fem Queen vs big boy/ girl  

The perfect heist crew needs someone who can move through cameras, through lasers, through sound detection . They slide through cracks, twist through beams, and land where no one else can. No gender. No limits. Just 5 specific elements! You’ve breached the museum  and the alarm’s about to sound. Show us how you move to survive." Bring it in a creative and sneaky all black head to toe look. Will you make it through and get your 10’s? You must  bend arch and spin through the laser room, or slam your back and crash into police custody? 

Hand performance   

"A gloved hand can break any lock , metal, glass, or even the will of a room. Tonight, your gloves aren’t just fashion. They are tools. They are weapons. They are your cover. Precision. Seduction. Control. And in your grasp, the artifact awaits." Bring it in a glove of your choice. 

Sex siren

There’s always one moment in the heist when the plan could fall apart. The guards are alert. The lasers are live. The eyes of the room are sharp. And then... you enter. Suddenly the cameras drift. The guards forget their post. The tension melts beneath the sway of hips, the glint of skin, the promise of something they can’t resist. You don’t need to crack the vault, you are the temptation they would trade it all for. Tonight, the greatest weapon isn’t a tool or a trick, it’s pure desire. Bring any sexy effect that could detract any guard.

Face

In the museum, some artifacts are kept behind the thickest glass, framed, spotlighted, impossible to steal... or so they thought. But what they never understood is this: true beauty needs no case, no label, no alarm. Tonight, you are the masterpiece, bringing your own frame to reveal the face they could never capture. The room will hold its breath. And when the frame drops the beauty speaks for itself."

Bring it with a frame (of your choice) to unveil and literally frame your face on the floor. Frame it with art. Frame it with precision. Frame it with power. Because this face is priceless.