Drag U Downtown is still dedicated to making sure students have spaces on campus for self-expression and celebration, planning its first event of the year for Tuesday from 4-8 p.m. at the Student Center.
The DragUMania show, part of Drag U Downtown's 2025 Pride Week celebration, was set for April. However, Educational Outreach and Student Services informed organizers a day before the show they would have to postpone the week's events due to registration errors, forcing them to reschedule for the fall.
READ MORE: Breaking: ASU, EOSS postpone Drag U Downtown events
Jackson Hamblin, a senior studying nonprofit leadership and management, serves as a leader for the upcoming event, which includes a movie screening, service project, resource fair and drag story time. He said it is particularly special to work on a project for the fall semester because it gets new students familiar with the art of drag.
"Drag U Downtown for a lot of our ASU students is their first exposure to a drag event, myself included," Hamblin said. "I hadn't really been to an event that was that queer focused before, until my sophomore year, and I kind of fell in love with them."
Mariah Champion, a sophomore studying tourism development and management and the director of finance for Drag U Downtown, said Drag U is a celebration of freedom where students can be loud and proud of who they are without fear.
For freshmen who may come to college from households with LGBTQ+ rights opponents, events like this can help them realize "I don't have to keep hiding myself. I can be myself, I can be here, I can dance, I can do drag," Champion said.
After Tuesday, the team will begin preparing for a spring event. Hamblin said the organizers are dedicated to regaining what was lost last semester and plan to preserve the DragUMania wrestling theme with some new additions.
This year, Drag U Downtown is focused on making sure event planning is timely and correct. On top of registration errors, insufficient security protocol was one of the reasons the University cited for postponing last semester's show.
Hamblin said one added security protocol due to an intense political climate is the use of an indoor venue for the show.
"There were definitely a lot of concerns amongst the higher-ups at ASU of having this type of event outdoors," Hamblin said. "Both the ASU administration and the Drag U Downtown team agreed it would probably be best to move everything indoors."
Alana Boots, a senior studying medical studies, is a member of the Rainbow Coalition, which is student-led and supports the rights, safety and health of the LGBTQ+ community on campus. She said last year's postponement caused worry among students and the event's collaborating organizations.
"It sucks that we have to all be walking on eggshells to make sure everything's perfect when other organizations don't have to do that," Boots said.
Despite a looming shadow from last semester, the Drag U Downtown committee is devoted to remaining resilient and providing events for students to celebrate the art of drag.
"They basically kicked up into high gear and said, 'You know what? This ended, and we've just got to come back next year, even stronger,'" Champion said.
Edited by Kasturi Tale, Henry Smardo, Sophia Braccio and Katrina Michalak.
Reach the reporter at jagon128@asu.edu.
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Jazlyn Gonzales is junior studying Journalism and Mass Communication. This is her third semester with the State Press. She has also interned at KJZZ.
