Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, it’s the Mother City Queer Project (MCQP) party. Superman, Batman and Spiderman will have the day (and night) off from fighting crime and the forces of evil on December 16.
Thousands of superheroes, villains and other characters you find in the pages of Marvel and Archie comics will be sipping cocktails and dancing to DJs such as Roger Goode and Lady Lea till dawn at this year’s MCQP party at Ratanga Junction in Cape Town.
Now in its 13th year, the MCQP is an annual queer art party project. According to the project’s website, the main event is a huge costume party that acts as an “open-hearted headspace, whether you identify as gay, lesbian, transgendered, straight, bisexual, or even just queer”.
The event this year is called “comic strip” — a theme with endless costume possibilities, according to event director Richard Gradner, who is thinking about going as Richie Rich.
“Judging by the theme we created, the craziest outfits we will be expecting this year will be no outfits. There’s going to be a lot of body paint with very little clothing,” he said.
The MCQP’s website encourages the 6 000 attendees expected to fly in (with the help of their trusty capes and magic carpets) to think laterally when deciding on a character: “From Madam and Eve to Madam and Steve, Bat to Super, Cat to Powder, all you men and women cloaked up and dressed down … maybe you want to go lateral, or maybe you’ll find a way to comically strip as the night wears on.”
Costumes are a huge issue at any MCQP party, mainly because of the extent to which most revellers will go to create extraordinary and flamboyant outfits to win the R6 900 prize money (whatever you’re thinking about this number, you’re assuming correctly).
If you’re not dressed up as Garfield, Jon or Betty and Veronica (people must arrive in groups no matter how much of a loner their character is), you will not be allowed inside the theme park. As it reads on the website: “No costume, no entry.”