Running annually since 1996, after a one-off show in 1987, the pageant has already created one household name.

Ten years ago, Shirley Temple Bar scooped the prize, sending the man behind the dress, Declan Buckley, on a successful bingo-calling career, from RT�'s Telly Bingo to bingo on Sunday nights in the George gay bar in Dublin, one of the most popular club nights in the city.

"For the first few years, getting 10 contestants was hard, " presenter Panti explained to the Sunday Tribune. "We did have to go around persuading people who were fun to do it, so it was much more of a heldtogether-with-bamboo-andsnot kind of affair. Nowadays it's a bit of a juggernaut. We get tonnes of gay drag queens looking to enter, drag kings, women as women, men as men." At one stage, even a dog was entered into the competition.

Tonight's contestants are made up of successful entrants along with the winners of heats in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Belfast and from Dublin's Filipino community.

The competition involves two minutes of performance in daywear, four minutes in evening wear and a Rose of Tralee-style interview in swimwear.

Apart from the "raucous, drunken affair - really wild fun" that Panti promises, Alternative Miss Ireland has will raise tens of thousands of euro for HIV and Aids charities and services in Ireland. In 2006 alone Euro30,000 was raised. "People sort of think that HIV has gone away, " Panti told the Sunday Tribune, "so it's good for the charities to keep it in people's minds."

Panti believes that the evening "shows the gay community at its best - creative and fun. It has a crossover appeal in the way that Pride doesn't. Although it's something rooted in the gay community, it reaches out to wider community, everyone is in there having a laugh. I think it's important that something so stupid in one way, but also brilliant fun and creative in another way, has this presence."

Past judges have included Brenda Fricker, Van Morrison, Marc Almond and Johnny Logan. This year, Louis Walsh takes his place on the judging panel.