Pictured: Ivy, winner of Season 5 of Kennedy Davenport’s All-Around Talent Competition, held at Marty’s Live, and first runner-up Ace, with Kennedy, Marty’s Live General Manager Mikey Howard and Manager/DJ Jesse Rose Jr.
Season 5 of Kennedy Davenport’s All-Around Talent Competition, held each Tuesday at Marty’s Live, wound up earlier this week, with Ivy taking the $1,000 cash prize for first place. Ace was named first runner-up, winning $500.
Season 6 kicks off next Tuesday, Dec. 7.
Kennedy, the current reigning Miss Gay USofA and a star of RuPaul’s Drag Race and Drag Race All Stars, hosts the weekly talent contest, with each week’s winner taking home $400 in cash. Each season of the contest runs for 10 weeks. As Marty’s Live General Manager Mikey Howard noted, “It would be hard anywhere in the country to find anyplace else that has given away this much money to our community.”
He added that while being LGBTQ is not a requirement to compete, all the winners so far have been members of the LGBTQ community.
Howard said Marty’s Live is stepping up its game in terms of competitions, and organizers are in the process of working out details for the first annual Marty’s Live King and Queen pageant. That contest will likely happen next June. Winners of both the king and queen titles will receive $2,000 each, and each runner-up will win $500.
“We are still working on this, and we are not sure yet if this will be just a bar title, or if it will be a preliminary for a national title,” Howard said. “But there will be no entry fee. We are about giving back to the community.”
