For 15 Years, This Michigan Venue Has Built a National Presence Around Drag Queen Bingo: A Crowd-Pleaser for Both Queer People and Housewives
Where Five15 owner Gary Baglio found his inspiration and why drag legend Sabin has built a career in bingo
For 15 years, Five15's drag queen bingo has been much more than just a night of sassy jokes, glitter and lucky numbers. What started as a whimsical nod to an episode of "Sex and the City" has grown into something deeper and more meaningful.
Co-owner Gary Baglio says the weekly event has become a powerful force for community connection — bringing together unlikely friends, bridging divides and breaking down barriers, one bingo card at a time. It’s a surprising impact for an event built around laughter and lighthearted fun, with drag queens as its fabulous ambassadors of inclusivity.
“I was watching the show 15 years ago, and the girls were going to drag queen bingo, and I thought, ‘What a cool idea!’ And here we are,” he says with a hearty laugh.
“I’ve got a million stories that would just tickle your funny bone and warm your heart,” Baglio adds. “Never in a million years did I ever think it would turn into what it has, but I couldn’t be more proud.”
In the early days, Royal Oak’s Five15 marketed drag queen bingo mostly to the LGBTQ+ community. “It seemed like the obvious thing to do,” Baglio recalls. “It did take off right away, but then it started to wear off a little bit… And then, all of the sudden, we started to have bachelorette parties show up and the red hat ladies and book clubs and other demographics. It was kind of shocking, but they just loved it.”
These days, Five15’s drag queen bingo events, which happen on most days of the week, are brimming with middle-aged housewives and, increasingly, straight men. Baglio mentions a biker club that rents out a whole night of drag queen bingo each year that corresponds with their annual meeting in Detroit. “You’d never expect to see it, but it’s a bunch of macho biker guys and, let me tell you, they have the time of their lives,” he says. “It’s morphed over the years and now it’s probably a good 40% male-to-female ratio. The more men in the audience, the more fun they have, and that’s really surprised me over the years.”
While drag queen bingo events are available all over town and nationally, not all drag queen bingo is created equally. Baglio feels confident that Five15 stands out from the crowd, due in large part to the talent of hosts like the legendary Detroit drag performer Sabin, who has been with Five15 from the beginning, and stars like Trixie Deluxxe, a former co-host on WDRQ’s ’90s morning show with Jay Towers. Shows also feature acts like the “trailer park” stylings of Iowna Lotza-Katz, Orlando-based Carol Lee (who delights players with twisted tales of Hollywood stars), Electra from Ft. Lauderdale and New Yorker Angel Sheridan, who, Baglio assures us, is no angel.
Baglio is struck by how much attention Five15 has received from major national drag queen performers. “We’ve earned this reputation, and what makes me even more proud is on a personal level,” he says. “When I grew up in this area as a kid, we didn’t really have the things that the larger cities had, like Chicago, New York, San Francisco or Miami. I had to travel to have a big gay weekend, to find the larger entertainment. But we bring it out here now, and we give it our local community and it makes me proud that the younger people can appreciate all the things that I didn’t have when I was growing up.”
During Royal Oak Pride in July, Five15 hosted some of that big-name entertainment, including finalists Roxxxy Andrews and Angeria Paris VanMichaels from the latest season of “RuPaul’s Drag Race All-Stars," in which VanMichaels took home the crown.
Drag queen bingo pioneer Sabin, aka Tyler Cooper, didn’t set out to become a fixture at Five15, but it might have been fate. “Oh. Let me tell you how I got this job,” Cooper tells Pride Source, before describing the hot summer day when he was working as an extra in downtown Royal Oak on the set of “Prayers for Bobby,” the Sigourney Weaver movie based on the true story of a mother grappling with the suicide of her gay son.
“I was in makeup and in the heat for 11 hours, and it was not fun, really, the overall experience of this; it’s just a whole lot of hurry up and wait. Everybody was getting restless. So, I started talking to people as they were walking down the street. We jump off the float for a few minutes and I’m making conversation to fill the time, just being myself,” Cooper recalls. “Gary was standing outside the store watching the interactions and heard me talking to people. He thought my comedy was a lot of fun.”
Later, Baglio tracked Cooper down at The Malebox, a now-closed bar on Seven Mile in Detroit, to watch him perform as Sabin in a booty contest and asked him to help get drag queen bingo started at Five15. “So I just got my job basically being myself, making conversation, cracking jokes and whatever,” he recalls. “My first show was on January 20th, 15 years ago, and I’ve been there ever since. I was the first queen that ever walked through the door, so I originated drag queen bingo in Royal Oak.”
Cooper says he’s auditioned almost every performer who has hosted drag queen bingo at the venue, apart from established acts like Trixie Deluxxe. Often, he mentors new hosts as they get up to speed on the ins and outs of creating an engaging show that appeals to a wide audience — something that looks much easier than it really is.
“I always tell my friends that they don’t realize sometimes how hard the job is,” Cooper says. “When you’re doing a drag show, it’s a little bit different, you interject five, 10 minutes of comedy and then it’s a performance and then a couple minutes of comedy and you introduce another performance. There are constant breaks. Bingo is a whole different animal.”
Each bingo session focuses on one performer who has to entertain over 100 people for an hour-and-a-half to two hours. “I’ve seen people get eaten alive in that atmosphere because it’s hard and the audience will take over if you can’t express dominance. It’s you and a microphone and you’ve either got it or you don’t. I don’t know how I got in there, but I’m very fortunate for what I get to do.”
“All of it is a crazy honor,” Cooper says. “I work with some of the funniest people I’ve ever met, and the fact that I’ve been able to share the stage with them and work alongside them and sometimes even kind of mentor a little bit is really kind of a crazy thing.”
In June, Cooper was a special guest and featured speaker at Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s annual Pride celebration at the governor’s mansion in Lansing, making him the first drag queen to appear as such. Whitmer, who Cooper considers a true friend, has been vocally supportive of drag queen culture in Michigan. The experience, he says, was “surreal.”
“I did make a little bit of history there,” Cooper acknowledges. “And it’s incredible because I grew up in a really small town, and to be able to go from a small town to being in that situation with… I mean, I hate to use the term ‘movers and shakers,’ but these people in attendance are literally shaping our lives every day.” That experience may feel even more poignant after the Nov. 5 election.
After the election results rolled in, Baglio reached out on Facebook to share words of comfort. "Today, many of us are feeling a deep, shared sorry — a feeling that the world has shifted in ways that leave us uncertain, hurt and profoundly shaken," he wrote. "We know that today, the path forward may feel harder than ever. But please know this: Pronto and Five15 stand firmly with you, as safe spaces where everyone is cherished, supported and celebrated just as they are."
"In the face of the unknown, we pledge to continue creating a sanctuary for all, a place to gather, laugh, find comfort and connect," he continued. "Here, you are valued, and you belong. We will keep our doors and our hearts open, to stand resiliently beside each of you. And we will keep working harder, day after day, to hold this light for our community — until we can't. Stay strong, stay proud and know you are loved."
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