Pattaya is the one city in the world where a visitor will see transgender women every day without looking for them: on stage at two of the most famous cabaret shows in Asia, behind the counter at the 7-Eleven, on Beach Road at midnight, and in a handful of bars that advertise exactly who works there. Some visitors come specifically for the shows. Some want to know which bars to walk into and which to avoid. Most are simply curious and a little unsure how to behave.
This guide is for all three. It covers Tiffany’s and Alcazar in enough detail to choose between them, explains where ladyboys work in the nightlife and how those venues are marked, gives the cultural background that makes sense of it, and sets out the etiquette that keeps everyone comfortable. It does not pretend that the subject is only about cabaret, and it does not treat the people involved as a curiosity.
A note on words. “Ladyboy” is the everyday English term in Thailand, used on signs, in bar names and by many trans women about themselves, and it is the term visitors will hear. The Thai word is kathoey. Neither is an insult in Thai usage, but “trans woman” is what the performers at Tiffany’s would call themselves, and “she” is the pronoun. We use all three below where each fits.
The Short Version
| Tiffany’s Show | Alcazar Cabaret | |
|---|---|---|
| Since | 1974 | 1981 |
| Where | Second Road, North Pattaya | Second Road, North Pattaya, a few hundred metres apart |
| Showtimes | 18:00, 19:30, 21:00 | 17:00, 18:30, 20:00, 21:30 |
| Length | About 70 minutes | About 70 minutes, 17 acts |
| Price range | Roughly 1,000–2,000+ THB by seat category | Roughly 450–1,200 THB depending on where you buy and where you sit |
| Best for | The full-scale production, the famous one | Value, more showtimes, strong Bollywood and Asian numbers |
| Suitable for children | Yes | Yes |
Both are family attractions, both sell out on high-season evenings, and both are a fifteen-minute baht bus from anywhere in central Pattaya. See one; if you have two evenings, see both, they are different enough.
Who Ladyboys Are
Thailand has a long-standing, visible and partly institutionalised place for people who are born male and live as women. The word kathoey historically covered a range of gender variance and today mostly means trans women, from those who dress and present as female to those who have had full surgical transition. There is no reliable count, but estimates run into the hundreds of thousands nationally, and Pattaya has a higher concentration than any city its size because the entertainment and tourism economy employs so many.
Everyday acceptance is real. Kathoey work openly in retail, beauty, hospitality, entertainment and increasingly in offices; nobody in a Thai shop looks twice. Thailand legalised same-sex marriage in January 2025, one of the first countries in Asia to do so. Tiffany’s runs Miss International Queen, the largest transgender beauty pageant in the world, from Pattaya, and it is broadcast nationally.
The acceptance has limits that matter in practice. Thai ID cards and passports still record legal sex at birth; recognition legislation has been debated for years and had not passed at the time of writing. That means a trans woman’s ID says male, which is why hotels see it, why immigration sees it, and why it comes up in situations the visitor may not expect. Discrimination in hiring for professional jobs is common, which is one reason so many kathoey end up in entertainment, beauty and the bar trade. Families in the provinces are often supportive; families in Bangkok’s middle class often are not.
For the visitor, the practical upshot is this: ladyboys in Pattaya are ordinary members of the workforce, a significant part of the nightlife, and the stars of the city’s two most famous shows. None of those things is hidden and none of them needs to be treated as awkward.
Tiffany’s Show
Tiffany’s opened in 1974 as a one-act performance in a small venue and became, by its own accurate description, the world’s first stage dedicated to transgender performers. The current theatre on Second Road seats more than a thousand and the production, which changes every few years, is a full-scale Las Vegas-style revue: a cast of around a hundred, elaborate costumes, big set pieces spanning Thai classical dance, Chinese opera, Korean pop, Bollywood, and Western musical numbers. The current show is titled Crystallize. Lip-syncing is part of the form and nobody pretends otherwise.
Showtimes are 18:00, 19:30 and 21:00, every night of the year, running about 70 minutes. Arrive twenty minutes early; the seating is assigned and the doors close promptly.
Prices run from roughly 1,000 THB for the cheapest seats to over 2,000 THB for VIP Gold at the front and centre, with Mezzanine and standard VIP in between. A soft drink is included. Prices vary with season and channel, and the official box office is sometimes cheaper than a resale platform, sometimes not; compare before you pay. Klook lets you choose the seat category and is reliable for confirmed tickets on busy nights.
Seats. The front-centre rows, A to C in the middle block, are the reason to pay for VIP Gold: the show is choreographed to be seen head-on and the costume detail is the point. Standard seats at the back of the stalls or in the mezzanine see the whole stage fine but lose the faces. For a family of four on a budget, mid-stalls is the sensible compromise.
After the show, the performers line up outside the theatre for photographs. This is expected and part of the evening. A tip of 40 to 100 THB per performer you pose with is customary; the photo is free but the tip is how they are paid for the extra half-hour. Do not take photos of the performers without posing with them and tipping.
Miss International Queen, the world’s largest transgender beauty pageant, has been staged by Tiffany’s in Pattaya since 2004 and draws contestants from thirty-odd countries. It is usually held in the first half of the year and is a spectacle in its own right if your visit coincides.
Alcazar Cabaret
Alcazar opened in 1981 and moved into its current thousand-seat theatre on Second Road in 1990, a few hundred metres from Tiffany’s. It runs the same basic formula, a 70-minute revue of around seventeen acts with a large transgender cast, and it is the show most Pattaya package tours are bussed to, which tells you something about its reliability and something about the crowd.
Showtimes are 17:00, 18:30, 20:00 and 21:30, four a night, which makes it easier to fit around dinner.
Prices are the reason many visitors choose it. Online, standard seats sell for around 450 THB and VIP around 600 THB; walk-up prices at the box office are higher and VIP with the front rows, refreshments and a photo session runs to about 1,200 THB. Hotel pickup is offered for around 1,000 THB per group. Klook carries both the plain ticket and the transfer version.
The show leans harder than Tiffany’s into international numbers: a Bollywood set, Korean and Chinese pieces, a Vietnamese folk number, Russian and Persian set pieces, alongside the Thai classical opening. The Indian numbers are a highlight and one reason the show is so popular with visitors from India. The production values are a notch below Tiffany’s, the humour is broader, and the whole thing is louder and more fun in a crowd.
The same photo-and-tip ritual happens outside afterwards.
Colosseum Show
A third cabaret, Colosseum Show Pattaya on Thepprasit Road towards Jomtien, opened in 2014 and runs a similar revue in a newer theatre, usually with two or three shows a night. It is less famous, less central and generally cheaper, and tour groups fill it in high season. Worth knowing about if the other two are sold out on the night you want; check the current schedule, which has changed several times since opening.
Tiffany’s or Alcazar?
Tiffany’s is the original, the more polished, the more expensive, and the one you have heard of. If you are going to see one cabaret in Thailand in your life and want the full-scale production, it is Tiffany’s.
Alcazar is cheaper by a wide margin, has more showtimes, and has the stronger Bollywood and pan-Asian programme. If you are travelling with a group from India, with children who will not sit through anything too refined, or on a budget, Alcazar is the better night.
Neither show has any adult content. Both are attended by Thai families, tour groups of all ages, and couples. Both are air-conditioned to a temperature that will make you wish you had brought a jacket.
Ladyboy Bars and the Nightlife
This is the part visitors ask about quietly, from two directions: some want to find these bars and some want to be sure they do not walk into one by mistake. The answer to both is the same. In Pattaya, bars staffed by ladyboys say so, and the ones that are not staffed by ladyboys often say that too.
Walking Street. A small number of the GoGo bars on Walking Street are staffed entirely by trans women and are marked at the door, in the name or on the sign. Katoeys R Us has been the best-known for years. None of the eleven GoGo bars we have reviewed in the GoGo bars guide is a ladyboy bar, and the guide says so. If a bar’s sign does not make it clear and it matters to you, ask the door staff; it is a routine question and you will get a straight answer.
Soi 6. The short-time bars on Soi 6 are mixed. Most are staffed by women, a few by ladyboys, and some by both. Where we have confirmed a bar is women-only, our Soi 6 venue reviews say “no ladyboys” in the notes. Where we have not, assume mixed and ask.
Beach Road at night. From about 22:00, the Beach Road promenade between Central Pattaya and Walking Street is worked by freelancers, and a large share of them are trans women. This is the most visible ladyboy scene in the city and the one most visitors encounter without meaning to. The safety section below is mostly about it.
LK Metro and Soi Buakhao. A handful of small bars in and around LK Metro are ladyboy bars, again marked. The area is relaxed about it and nobody will steer you wrong.
Not the same thing: Boyztown and the gay scene. Pattaya’s gay nightlife, centred on Boyztown (Pattayaland Soi 3) and the Jomtien Complex, is a separate scene with a separate clientele. Gay bars are not ladyboy bars, and the two are rarely confused by anyone who has been to either.
Etiquette
Most of this is simply manners, but Pattaya’s mix of alcohol, curiosity and cultural difference means it bears spelling out.
- “She.” Use female pronouns for anyone presenting as a woman. Not “it”, not “he”, not “he-she”. This is the single thing that Thai trans women say most often bothers them about foreign visitors.
- Do not point, stare or laugh. Thais notice, and so does she. A ladyboy in a Pattaya 7-Eleven is not a spectacle; she is at work.
- Asking is fine. Announcing is not. If you are in a bar and unsure and it matters, ask quietly, either the woman herself or the staff. In Thailand this is not considered rude. Announcing your discovery to the room is.
- Photos at the shows: pose, tip, done. Outside Tiffany’s and Alcazar the performers expect photos and are paid in tips. Photographing them from a distance without tipping is the one thing that gets a visitor told off there.
- No photos anywhere else without asking. Not on Beach Road, not in bars, not of the girl behind the counter. The same rule as for anyone.
- Do not make it a joke to your friends in earshot. Pattaya’s ladyboys speak more English than you think and have heard every version.
The Question of How to Tell
Visitors ask, and it is better to answer honestly than to pretend the question does not exist.
The truth is that you often cannot, not reliably, and the folk markers, the Adam’s apple, the hands, the height, the voice, fail constantly in both directions after hormones and surgery. Pattaya has trans women who pass completely and cis women who are tall with deep voices. Anyone who tells you they can always tell is guessing.
What is reliable is the ID card, because Thai law has not changed it: legal sex on a Thai ID says male for almost every trans woman. That is why hotels know, and why a guest-friendly hotel’s policy will sometimes say explicitly that women and ladyboys are treated the same (see our guest-friendly hotels guide). It is also why simply asking works: there is no point in a trans woman lying to a man she is about to walk past a front desk with.
On the apps, ThaiFriendly keeps a separate section for ladyboy profiles and most use it; Tinder has gender options that most people fill in honestly. Neither is perfect. A video call before meeting settles it, and asking politely in the chat is normal in Thailand and not taken as an insult. The dating apps guide covers this in the safety section.
Safety
The ladyboy scene in Pattaya is not dangerous as such, but two specific patterns are worth knowing, and both are about place and hour rather than about trans people.
Beach Road after midnight. A share of the thefts reported by tourists in Pattaya each year involve groups of freelancers on the Beach Road promenade, and some of those groups are trans women. The pattern is a friendly approach, a hug or a hand on the arm, and a missing phone, wallet or gold chain a minute later. Walk on the road side rather than the sea side after midnight, keep valuables in a front pocket or zipped, and treat a group approach the way you would in any city. This is a pickpocketing pattern, not a trans one; it is worth stating because visitors hear it framed the other way.
Arguments. The fights that make the local news between foreign men and ladyboys almost always start the same way: a drunk visitor makes a comment, and the response is fast and not what he expected. Thai trans women in the bar trade are not fragile and are not alone. The etiquette above is the whole of the prevention.
Beyond that, the standard rules: agree prices before anything, keep your drink in sight, and use the tourist police (1155) if something goes wrong. The Beach Road police box near Soi 9 is staffed at night.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Tiffany’s Show suitable for children?
Yes. It is a costume-and-dance revue with no adult content, attended by Thai families and tour groups of all ages. The same is true of Alcazar.
How much is Tiffany’s Show?
Roughly 1,000 to over 2,000 THB depending on seat category and channel, with a soft drink included. Alcazar runs roughly 450 to 1,200 THB. Prices move with season; compare the official box office and a platform such as Klook before buying.
Do I need to book in advance?
In high season, November to February, yes, especially for the 19:30 Tiffany’s show and any Alcazar show on a weekend. In low season you can usually walk up, but the good seats go to advance bookings.
Which is better, Tiffany’s or Alcazar?
Tiffany’s for the production and the name; Alcazar for price, showtimes and its Bollywood and Asian numbers. Both are about 70 minutes and a few hundred metres apart on Second Road.
What does kathoey mean?
The Thai word for trans women and, historically, for a broader range of gender variance. It is the everyday term in Thai and not an insult in ordinary use; “ladyboy” is its usual English rendering in Thailand.
Can I take photos of the performers?
After the show, yes: they line up outside for photos and expect a tip of 40 to 100 THB per performer. During the show, and anywhere outside the theatre context, ask first.
Are there ladyboy bars on Walking Street?
A few, and they are marked. Katoeys R Us is the best known. None of the GoGo bars in our GoGo guide is a ladyboy bar.
Final Thoughts
Pattaya’s trans women are among the most visible in the world, and the city is better for it: two of Asia’s great cabaret shows, a workforce that turns up everywhere, and a nightlife that is honest about who works where. The visitor who treats all of that with ordinary respect, uses the right pronoun, tips the performers, asks quietly when it matters and keeps his phone in his pocket on Beach Road, will find the whole subject far less complicated than the internet makes it sound.
Go and see Tiffany’s. Then go and see Alcazar. Then stop thinking of it as a topic.
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Pattaya.love Editorial Team
Local Experts since 2019
Our team of Pattaya-based writers, photographers, and long-term residents researches every guide on the ground. We visit venues, test routes, and verify every recommendation so you get actionable, up-to-date information you can trust.
