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Mindfulness Program 2026: Centering Queer Bodies and Minds - curated by Giustina Easton

Check back daily for more artist reveals.

August 3, 2026

August 3: Mindfulness Program 2026, curated by Giustina Easton

Centering Queer Bodies and Minds

Drop in, connect with the land and one another as Giustina Easton returns this year to curate a robust program of otherworldly facilitations, heightening your camp experience.

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“The Mindfulness Program at Honcho Campout is a sanctuary to soften into ourselves, one another, and the wisdom of the forest that holds us. Here, we lay down the armor of everyday life, tend to our nervous systems and bodies, and embrace rest as an act of liberation. Through embodied practice, collective care, and the guidance of our facilitators, we invite you to receive, reconnect, and remember that in community, in nature, and in the quiet presence of the body, we become portals for transformation.”
- Giustina Easton

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We recognize the importance of balancing the high energy of the festival with the opportunity to self reflect and connect with one another, and we are thrilled to work with these facilitators whom we trust to hold space for you:

  • B Dukes (Oakland, CA) – DEEP: Opening the Portal and To Be A Witness
  • Caleb Thomas (NYC) – Talking to the Body & Fluid Motion
  • Felix III (NYC) – A Sonic Journey Into Night & A Sonic Journey Into Day
  • Buyers Club (CHI) – Constellations of Connection & Penetrating the Universal Veil
  • Horus Porras (FL) – Journey Through the Tree & Kundilini Yoga for Creators
  • Star Mitchell & Kneaku (NYC) – VERTEX: Somatic Workshops
  • Thiccshake (LA / Tongva Land) – Taking Up Space: Sensual Movement

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August 2: Honshowgirls: A Best Practices Revue

Created by BUMPER and JP Maddock

Introducing Honshowgirls: A high-glam revue that'll teach you how to stay safe, stay hydrated, and stay fabulous — one sequence at a time.

Like Madonna says, Safety In Numbers - so show up and DON’T be a vibe kill!

FEATURING:

About the Creators:

Bumper (DC) and JP (NYC) have spent years bringing gags to the fags, with their hands in things like World Pride, Flower Factory, Diet Zhuzh and Honcho Campout, just to name a few. You've seen them both on stage at Best Practices over the past three years and this year they're taking the reins! Both performers in their own right and DIY production nerds through and through, they've taken Best Practices and turned it on its head, tapped some of their favorite showgirls, and brought it into the world of the Las Vegas Strip.

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July 31: CRITTERS LOUNGE: BIG GAY COMEDY SHOW with Honey Pluton & Sureni Weerasekera.

Introducing our very first performance block dedicated to comedy – it's the BIG GAY COMEDY SHOW featuring Honey Pluton and Sureni Weerasekera!

Honey Pluton

Honey boasts a wild life journey, beginning with birth in Florida, a childhood in Chicago, college and stage gongs in London, organizing in the DIY punk scene in Seattle, and finally landing in New York. He now claws their way into the queer comedy scene with a metaphorical grappling hook, producing the weekly podcast Up Good with Honey Pluton, screaming their impulsive life choices into a bullhorn, and hoping someone else wants to scream along with them. Count us in for the screaming.


Sureni Weerasekera

Sureni Weerasekera is a Sri Lankan-born, San Diego-raised, and New York-based stand-up comedian, actor, and writer renowned for their seamless blend of lighthearted conversational banter and ruthless, dark jabs. Featured on Netflix’s Netflix Is a Joke: Introducing... showcase, Sureni has graced stages at the New York Comedy Festival and SF Sketchfest. They also host the monthly QTBIPOC comedy showcase Earth Tones at Union Hall in Brooklyn.

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July 29: CRITTERS LOUNGE: Theatre Shows: Beyond the Stardust feat The Illustrious Blacks, and LeeLee presents The Juke Joint & Cat Canoe.

Critters Lounge plays host to a wide range of performances, including out of this world theatre pieces. For 2026, we’re excited to partner on programming with NYC’s The Flea, as well as welcome back the one and only LeeLee, who has put together two glorious new shows. Here’s whats in store:
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BEYOND THE STARDUST
Presented by The Flea
Featuring The Illustrious Blacks & Niegel Smith

We’re proud to team up with New York’s The Flea to present an adapted, sneak peek performance of their upcoming Beyond the Stardust. Conceived by Flea Artistic Director Niegel Smith and The Illustrious Blacks, Beyond the Stardust is an Afro-disco-space-punk-extravaganza of no-fucks-futurist-fabulousness, inviting audiences into intercosmic dance floor liberation.

LeeLee Presents
The Juke Joint and Cat Canoe: An Improv Show
Featuring Baddie Brooks, Gerrin Delane Mitchell, JAYKAYPRIME!, LeeLee, Samora la Perdida,

THE JUKE JOINT

Juke joints have always been vital historical and cultural spaces for Black Queer folks, offering refuge from the violence of white surveillance and religious respectability politics, and fostering radical self-expression and healing. Key to the birth of the blues, juke joints also laid the foundational roots for modern queer Black nightlife and ballroom culture. Come croon into the morning with this star studded cast from across the diaspora!

CAT CANOE: AN IMPROV SHOW

A psychedelic circus-themed improv comedy show about a wayward Butch Queen stumbling into a ballroom house full of Fem Queen vampires who haven’t seen a piece of trade in centuries.  In a final Vogue battle to the DEATH, join this star studded cast to see who will be the last bad bitch standing, and who will be getting the CHOP! 

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July 27: Kitten N' Lou's Critters Cabaret returns for 2026!

Cabaret and queerdo burlesque are at the heart of our vision for Critters Lounge, and there’s no more perfect embodiment of this art than New Orleans’ Kitten & Lou. In 2024 they were serving up Snoballs at Hemlock Hole and they’ll be returning to do that again. In 2025 their menu expanded to the full stage spectacle, bringing a cast of their favorite characters nightly to Critters. They blew our minds, hearts and ears, so we can’t wait for another round of wild performances on that woodland cabaret stage.
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From Kitten & Lou:
“Join our cast of cabaret critters for a unique and unhinged mix of burlesque, drag, cabaret, comedy, and sublime strangeness…enter our tent and expect the unexpected!”

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WE’RE PLEASED TO WELCOME THEIR INCREDIBLE 2026 LINEUP TO THE STAGE:

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July 23: LIVE Music at Critters Lounge: Curated by Black Leather Jesus, CRICKETS, and LIGHT ASYLUM

Our first round of Critters Lounge programming has been revealed – kicking off with this year's live music programming. We're changing things up a bit this year, inviting three anchor artists to put together their own shows – one each night of Campout – with support from around the US that they want to platform. The result is a wild range of live sounds from the queerscape.

Thursday, Black Leather Jesus kicks things off with noise and experimental music:

Friday, LIGHT ASYLUM pulls music and performance art fam from the West:

Saturday, CRICKETS (JD Samson, Roddy Bottum, and Michael O'Neill) features sounds from NYC (and LA):

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July 22: Drag Performances – Curated by Charlene

The one and only Charlene returns once more with another heater of a main stage drag lineup. The theme this year is a mix of superstars, up-and-comers, and return acts who have really stepped their shit up. Lets get into it:

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Returning to Critters Lounge: Total Rejects LIVE

Didn't make the main lineup but simply HAVE to strut your stuff during Honcho Campout this year? The second annual Total Rejects Live in the Critters Lounge is here to save the day! TRL is an hour of round-robin drag on Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at Honcho Campout, hosted by Charlene & Friends, and starring YOU, hopefully! There's room for 5 ticketholding drag performers (you must already be coming to Camp – no comps!) to give it to the girls each night, and qualifying queens, kings, and things will be accepted to give a number til we got all 15!

This year we'll welcome three hosts:

Read the Application thoroughly and apply here.

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July 21: Hemlock Nights – Curated by Sav G

Hemlock Nights is getting a twist for 2026 – into a more soulful direction. We've tapped Detroit's Sav G to bring the freakier sides of funk, soul, rare disco, boogie, deep house and more to the witching hours at Hemlock Hole.

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“ATTEN-HUT! Sav G's Disco Conscription begins HERE...

Through the supple Midwestern sapphic panopticon, a soft voice speaks effusively. A beam of light narrows. A breath of fresh Edenic air fills the lungs of the crestfallen dancer, suffocated by lurid modernities...

FEMMES! BUTCHES! LADIES! ENBYS!

It is hereby REQUIRED that you forcibly eject yourselves from the milquetoast hetero-technocracy, castigate the lizard in the woman's skin, and report immediately for these state-mandated lesbian cruising hours, as outlined above.

Ron Hardy?

I hardly know her.

As one great iconoclast put it…

"Genres aren't real. It's all marketing. Good music is good music."

You will arrive as bright-eyed, bushy-tailed spinsters. You will depart as dissident debutantes. Luddites for the new old sound.

The assignment is simple:

Partake in scribing an indelible signature upon the intergenerational stone of eclectic dance music.

Turn away from the deejay and face your future friends and lovers.

Music is a (REDACTED) and it gets you real high.

DISMISSED.”

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July 14: QFF Presents the Camp Kunt KiKi Ball Curated by Valentino Valentine, and Afterparty Curated by Sterling Juan Diaz

We're proud to announce this year's QFF Presents programming!

First up, it's the Camp Kunt KiKi Ball, this year curated by Ball veteran Valentino Valentine. Check out the full information on categories here.

After the trophies are handed out, we dive into the QFF Afterparty, curated by Sterling Juan Diaz, featuring:

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July 13: NYC's Papi Juice takes over The Grove on Friday Night!

Campout continues our mission of handing the majority of the festival's curation over to the collectives and people doing THE WORK around North America, and so we are proud to announce our first guest curators of 2026: NYC's PAPI JUICE collective. Buckle up – they'll be taking over The Grove for a 12-hour sunset-to-sunrise blowout on Friday night with this incredible lineup:
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July 12: It's the moment you've been waiting for: our first round of artists for 2026!

We'll kick things off with a big wave of DJs – the pulsing heartbeat of Campout. As always, it's a fierce mix of people we love, from absolute legends to up-and-comers. No matter if they've been doing their thing for three decades or three years, these are the folks doing heavy lifting in their local scenes while also flexing the highest taste.
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Check this post out daily as we continue to update it with more artist drops!

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