Before creating SOBEWFF®, Festival Founder and Director Lee Brian Schrager made his mark on Miami Beach in the late 1980s and early ‘90s as the owner of Torpedo (the legendary gay bar known for its Tuesday and Thursday night parties and Sunday afternoon tea dances), The Spot on Española Way (the equally legendary bar co-owned by actor and former boxer Mickey Rourke) and CHOW (the popular health food restaurant next door to Torpedo). Frequented by designers like Gianni Versace, Thierry Mugler and Jean Paul Gaultier, and fresh-faced supermodels in town for photographer Bruce Weber’s iconic fashion shoots, Torpedo became both a Miami Beach institution and a haven for the LGBTQIA+ community.

For this 40 year reunion tea dance and drag show, we’re bringing the good times back thanks to Athena Dion, the host and producer of R House Wynwood’s show-stopping weekend drag brunches, and Grammy-winning Motown legend Thelma Houston, who’s slated to perform a set of chart-topping hits, including:
– “Sweet Soul Music/ I Got The Music In Me”
– “Saturday Night, Sunday Morning”
– “Disco Heat / Mighty Real”
– “Last Dance”
– “Don’t Leave Me This Way”

Joining Dion and Houston will be the one and only Symone, season 13 winner of “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” who will be pulling out all the stops for what promises to be a dazzling drag show that harkens back to the glory days of Kitty Meow. And to tie everything together, we’ve called on social media star and TV personality Kalen Allen to provide his signature sass and fun-loving spirit (Cue the cocktails…it is happy hour after all!) The mics are on and the volume’s up for what is hands-down the most fabulous way to close out the Festival weekend.