It’s been an emotional beginning to the International Mr Gay Leather contest for Irish contestant, Conor Vaughan-Buggy. Watch his video diary below!

Caffeine and Vitamin B are my friends! Already its looking like this weekend is going to be absolutely packed to the rafters, which is exciting but also exhausting. Kevin Murphy, Geared Ireland’s representative here last year (and first runner-up, I might add) gave me great advice on what to pack to keep my energy levels up.

I will leave it to my video for you to see how I got on yesterday. Today is really all focussed on interviews in the first half of the day and then the big ceremony tonight which should be interesting. Kind of like the opening ceremony of The Olympics, all participants carry on their national flag first. The USA goes last, so I think that make me about fifth on stage after the Australians emerge first, then Thorsten from Austria, then the three Canadian lads, then Sylvain from France and Werner from Germany. Then me, and then David from Israel, before all of the US guys march on stage. After that we have to change into our first set of our preferred leather outfit for the night. And of course our sashes. I plan on an early night, though that is highly unlikely given the number of parties!

I am already getting anxious for tomorrow, which is the physique and personality round. Standing on stage in boots and a jockstrap trying to sound funny is not my idea of a fun Saturday evening. It probably didn’t help that I looked at Miss Congeniality on the flight over… damn you Sandra Bullock!