Last year at the High Princx Pageant, Sassi Fran knew she’d be competing against some of the Bay Area’s best drag performers — and getting judged by them, too. So she and her friends spent hours hand-making dozens of delicate tulle flowers that would make up the robe she’d wear on stage. She was preparing for a moment that would make everyone gasp: On the runway, she dropped her robe and revealed a luminescent mushroom outfit that changed color under the blacklight.
Sassi got a top score that night; the following week, with a high-drama number that incorporated Filipino folk dance, she clinched the victory. Looking back as she gets ready to relinquish her crown when the pageant returns this weekend, she says the two-weekend competition gave her the motivation she needed to take her drag to new creative and technical heights.
“I created something that really pushed myself further than I have before,” she reflects. Indeed, her victory led to high-profile gigs, including opening for RuPaul’s Drag Race royalty Crystal Methyd and Alaska at major venues like San Francisco’s Palace of Fine Arts and Bimbo’s 365 Club.
Providing a stage for drag performers to elevate their craft is exactly what the pageant’s founder, Tito Soto, envisioned when he devised it as an offshoot of his popular Saturday night party at Oasis, Princess. Since the pandemic, Princess has become San Francisco’s go-to destination for nationally touring drag performers and high-caliber local artists.
Whether a performer wants to levitate above the crowd using a scissor lift, pop confetti on cue with a beat drop or envelop the stage in plumes of fog, Oasis has the technical setup for the “wow” moments fans crave. “It wasn’t until I started doing drag in San Francisco and found Oasis that I realized, this is where I need to be, this is where I can flourish,” says Soto, who had a past life as a theme-park designer in Los Angeles. “This venue gives me the capabilities to use all the tech I need in order to execute the vision that I want to put on a big drag spectacular.”