Let’s go! It’s the inaugural Ms Bootblack Glasgow contest!! Get your tickets here!!!

Here’s the important stuff:
1pm–11:30pm, Saturday 24th October
Game Over, Drury Street, G2 5AA (accessibility info here)
18+ but not a play event
Leather & denim strongly encouraged
Full details on the ticket page

Only attendees need tickets; if you want to compete, check out the application form (deadline 27th September) and what’s involved (which includes eligibility info).

There are 80 tickets available so if you’re coming from somewhere that isn’t Glasgow you can be sure that you’ll be able to get in (and also so we can cover things like compensating travel for the judges and generally running Glasgow Leatherdykes related costs; none of the money goes into our pockets). Tickets are at £5/£10/£15+ depending on how much money you want to give us; all the different tickets are for the exact same event. Also! this is an event for people across the UK for people to celebrate leatherdykery, so this is for anyone who can authentically and respectfully engage with leatherdyke culture.

It’s gonna be longer than a bar night. There will be exciting things happening. Lots of good chat with the contestants, judges, and hopefully other leatherfolk from across the UK. You can dip in and out (though for the love of god please don’t bring outside food or drinks into the bar or else you’ll get kicked). Should be good fun!

This one is also going out early to the newsletter subscribers (this is my thank you for subscribing to the newsletter) rather than having a free-for-all over insta. I’ll probably post it on insta next weekend, so… not to use high pressure tactics to get you to buy a ticket sooner but if you wanna come I’d suggest getting one before then. With that in mind, if you are an organiser for something leatherdyke related and want to share this, please use your own mailing lists or printouts of our flyer (attached below) rather than posting on insta before we get our post out. I hate insta so much. Long live the mailing list.

I’m just realising now that I haven’t really explained what a bootblack contest is. Well, hopefully it should explain itself on the day. Basically, we’ll be putting the contestants through a bunch of bootblacking related challenges and making them do interviews and assessing how they conduct themselves to decide on who gets to hold the title of Ms Bootblack Glasgow for the next year, and then the titleholder gets to represent Glasgow leatherdykery in some capacity for that year (and kinda thereafter). Important note: when I say “we” I mean external judges; none of the admin team are judging any of the competition ourselves due to conflicts of interest. So who are the judges then? I’m so glad you asked!

We’ve got:
Wookie, current UK Bootblack
Astrid "Bvtch Boots", current Bootblack Europe & International Ms Bootblack, UK Bootblack 2024
Mal, Bootblack Europe 2023 and Chapter Head of Proteus Leather UK & Ireland
…and [TBA, local judge]

Anything else? We should have the Glasgow Leatherdykes Zine #2 done by the contest so if any of y’all want to bring your own zines we can have a table for that (though might need some volunteers to help run it). Email if you have any questions also!

Here’s the flyer (c/o Photographer Rowan):

At any rate, I try to keep it level and not get excited about things but I’m struggling to do that with this. Apparently it’s a(n) historic event, being the first “Ms Bootblack” contest anywhere this side of the Atlantic (though do correct me if I’m wrong there). With any luck, it’ll be the first of many. Wherever/whoever/whatever you are right now, I love you.

With scuffed up twenty eyelet Solos that I’m looking forward to getting done in [checks calendar] five weeks time,
yr girl, yvette, for Glasgow Leatherdykes