Beyoncé Fans Bring Ballroom Culture to Los Angeles
At the Renaissance World Tour, the spectacle can be found both inside and outside the stadium.
Beyoncé’s “Renaissance World Tour” made a stop this past weekend at the SoFi Stadium in Inglewood, California. Most of the 200,000 fans who attended the three sold-out dates dressed according to the visual aesthetic set by the singer herself during the tour’s 57-show run.
Fans sporting beaded cowboy hats, large ruffled capes, and disco ball dresses could all be found outside the venue. The fashion was defiantly queer, unrestricted by any idea of gender-specific clothing items. Although black, silver and white were the predominant chosen colors, creativity and diversity prevailed across the board.
The concert’s theme was devised in support of Beyoncé’s 2022 eponymous album, mirroring that project’s celebration of the ballroom and voguing communities of the early 1990’s. Fundamental elements of both these cultures were prevalent throughout the entire two and a half hour set, most notably in the visuals produced for it.
“This tour was all about creating a safe space for queer people of color,” said Camila Lopez, a second-year Santa Monica College student who attended the September 1 show. “And that’s exactly what she achieved. It was incredible to see us express ourselves so freely and unapologetically.”
LGBTQ+ pioneers Honey Dijon and Kevin Prodigy, and new icons such as Honey Balenciaga Gonzales join Beyoncé onstage in the effort to recreate the atmosphere of that era, one birthed by the queer Black and brown community in New York and Chicago.
Fans caught on to the visual direction from the very first tour date on May 10 in Stockholm, Sweden. Since then, it has become a habit of most concert-goers to dress up for the show. The singer posted on her Instagram story on August 22, asking attendees to wear their “most fabulous silver fashions” so the venue would look like “a shimmering human disco ball each night.” And Angelenos did abide by that guideline.
