AUSTIN, Texas — If there's one thing Austinites know how to do, it's entertain. One way to give the gift of entertainment is through an Extragram – a variation on old-school singing telegrams, performed by a local drag queen.
Extragrams was born out of necessity during the pandemic but now serves as an unconventional way for people to support Austin's drag community. Founder Kerry Lynn joined KVUE Daybreak to explain how the service came to life and how it works.
Yvonne Nava: You offer drag queen telegrams and drag queen entertainment right to your doorstep or your backyard. But this was born out of necessity in March of 2020, at the start of the pandemic. Tell us about that.
Kerry Lynn: "Yes. So, when everything closed, when the clubs closed, and meanwhile, people were looking for ways to celebrate each other and we were all having milestones, birthdays, getting engaged, I thought, 'What way can we kind of celebrate people and get performers to work?' And so, I thought of the old-school singing telegram and I thought, 'Let's resurrect this, let's make it extra.' And what better way to do that than with drag queens?"
Nava: If people are interested in booking, how does it work?
Lynn: "So, you can go to our website, ExtragramsATX.com. We have a cute little form there that collects all the information, and you can request any drag queen that we work with."
Nava: And as far as times when when are they available, when can you book anybody to come?
Lynn: "We work from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m., sometimes a little bit earlier, sometimes a little bit later. Hard to get the girls up earlier. We have late-night gigs."
Nava: Why is it so important that you offer this fabulous entertainment for anyone and everyone who wants to enjoy it?
Lynn: "I think it's really fun way to just create a moment. We're creating memories, and we're making it super personal. So when someone tells us about the person, what the reason that they're celebrating, we curate it and we make the drag queen performance and the song so that it's special for that person. So it creates a very big moment and a really special memory."
Nava: When it comes to just booking or anything like the time frames, it could be ranged from what time to what time as far as the performance length?
Lynn: "We have like, a standard drag queen telegram where we do a performance, we take photos, we have a cute little crown, you can add glitter bomb cupcakes and balloons. And we're also starting to do a lot more of like, pop-up performances. So backyard parties where we'll show up, we'll do two performances plus audience participation games. It's a whole lot of fun."
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