Since its Brooklyn debut in 2018, LadyLand – a queer music festival organized by New York nightlife powerhouse Ladyfag – has hosted performances by everyone from Eve to Kim Petras and Christina Aguilera to Honey Dijon and the Gossip. After several successful years at the Brooklyn Mirage, the festival moved to Under the 'K' Bridge Park in 2023, a unique New York location that – when not hosting a queer music festival – is a stunningly green public park under the Kosciuszko Bridge in an industrial section of Greenpoint.
Once attendees get past the “where the hell am I going?” terror, people quickly acclimatize to the spacious, easy-to-navigate and visually stunning location. It's a perfect place for a Pride Month celebration, and who better to celebrate in 2024 than Madonna, hot off her career-spanning celebration tour?
Seven months after bringing that blockbuster tour to Barclays Center, the Queen of Pop returned to Brooklyn on Saturday (June 29) for the second night of LadyLand 2024 (Tinashe and Slayyyter rocked the first night) to help close out Pride Month.
Madonna, who was not on the festival bill, had been rumored to make a surprise appearance at LadyLand before it was officially announced on Instagram on Thursday (June 27). But even after her presence at the festival was confirmed, no one knew what was going to happen. Would she come out during Tokischa's set to perform their collaboration “Hung Up on Tokischa,” a remake of her classic 2005 single, while hanging out with the Dominican rapper, like they did at Pride 2022 at Manhattan's Terminal 5? Pop while Arca – who made a cameo on stage during Madonna's recent Barcelona tour – performed? Spin a tune during the DJ set by Bob the Drag Queen, o Drag Race champion who deftly overcame her holiday tour?
Around midnight on the Fist Stage, attendees found out: Madonna was there to judge. Not the audience (though she might have done that too), but a group of ballroom artists who took to the runway during a segment called Vogue Ball House Battle that echoed the “Vogue” segment of her recent tour. Madonna, Arca, Bob the Drag Queen, Tokischa and Sevdaliza served as judges in a fashion competition, shining 10 for the various houses. And just like on her tour, pre-teen daughter Estere was there, only this time she gave a pre-vogue DJ set.
“Thank you New York,” Madonna said after the wrap. “Without you I am nothing.”
The New York City Pride March, the flagship event of the city's Pride Month, takes over Manhattan on Sunday (June 30) in commemoration of the Stonewall riots that marked the beginning of the modern LGBTQ rights movement.
