The Queen’s Ball is a lavish awards night honouring achievements of individuals, organisations and groups in the local LGBTIQ community.
The event is held at City Hall during the Queen’s birthday long weekend (hence the name) and is now the longest continuously running LGBTIQA+ event in the world [5]. Awards are presented in a variety of categories such as Activist of the Year, Drag Performer of the Year and Venue of the Year with winners decided by a public vote. The ball is renowned for lavish costumes and performances.
The first ball was held in 1962 in Mount Tamborine on the outskirts of Brisbane [9]. At the time, police raids on gay venues in Brisbane were all too common so attendees decided to rent holiday cottages in Mount Tamborine over the Queen’s Birthday long weekend. They held a fancy dress party and awarded gold-painted Kewpie dolls for the best costumes.
The event soon outgrew the holiday cottages and moved to a local hall. As the event grew it moved to the Gold Coast, then to suburban Brisbane and finally to inner-city Brisbane in the late seventies.In recent years the event is held at City Hall and is attended by the authorities that the event had tried to avoid by going to Mount Tamborine. A sign of how far society is come in recent years.
