One of the top UK Drum and Bass producers, lasers, licensed bar and a packed dance floor. Sounds like a great night out doesn’t it? Except this was a Sunday afternoon in South Manchester and the packed dance floor consisted of parents and babies, toddlers and young children dressed as superheroes. A family rave! What a great idea!
The events started out in London back in 2013 and have grown in popularity to become a national phenomenon with new events appearing in cities across the UK. The event has also featured at numerous big name festivals. The family raves aim to create an atmosphere where kids and adults can have as much fun as each other while listening to some of the best DJs around. The reviews and comments we had heard suggested Big Fish Little Fish were doing something great. It took some eager ticket booking to nab a place at the very popular Manchester event which sold out in minutes.
The theme was ‘Superheroes’ and due to general disorganisation on our part it was the day before when we decided we should probably do something about getting outfits for our two. We had seen some okay ones in Tesco before but a last minute trip to Sainsburys hit the jackpot. They have a selection of comic book superhero outfits to choose from for kids. We went for the Batman duo, his and hers including an amazing baby one for our little girl and a full ‘muscle-padded’ one including mask for our little boy. Needless to say Batman was unwilling to wait for his big debut at the party and spent most of the day before running around the house involved in various misadventures.
This was going to be a bit different from our Hacienda Classical event a few days earlier, you can read about that here.
We arrived at Chorlton Irish Club on the Sunday and there was already a queue out of the door full of little superheroes and excited looking parents. It was just like getting into a proper club, except the people on the door were the very friendly BFLF guys rather than some surly looking bouncers. There was a selection of rooms with everything from a full on dance floor to more relaxed chill out areas with loads of toys and books for every age.
Naturally we headed straight for the dance floor armed with the glowsticks we had been given at the door along with some of our own we just had laying about the house, as you do. If this had been a regular dance floor it would have no doubt been empty for the first hour but there’s something about having a whole bunch of kids on the dance floor that means the adults immediately get straight in there and start throwing shapes too. There was no holding back and the tunes were amazing, proper Drum and Bass by a young DJ and producer called Whiney from Med School and Hospital Records, only one of the biggest labels in the UK! (see link at the end). The kids loved the music, it was loud enough to create the right atmosphere but not so much that I was worried about their hearing. All ages were enjoying it from a few months old to 10 or 11. I’d guess the majority were early primary school age or younger.
After getting pretty hot waving our glowsticks around we decided to go and check out the chill out and play areas. There were play areas for all ages with sensory toys for the very young to play tents and face painting for the older ones. Our very own Batman insisted he needed to complete his costume with some matching face paint so while he did that with Mum, I took our youngest to climb around in the ball pool. All the while we were able to grab a drink from the licensed bar. I was itching to get back to the dance floor so once the kids had made their way around most of the toys we headed back downstairs. The dance floor was really busy now and everyone was having a great time dancing around. There were lights, a bit of smoke and then towards the end we had a big parachute and a load of balloons to ping and bounce around. The DJ started playing out some dance classics and everyone was singing along and generally having a great time. We certainly were and it cracked me up at how much our kids were enjoying dancing away to drum and bass and club classics.
It turns out we can still go clubbing – listening to proper dance music (rather than kids party music) with kids in tow and everyone can have an amazing time. The best bit was we were all home for tea and the kids were so exhausted by all the excitement that they were out like a light by bedtime.
Find out about Big Fish Little Fish Events here
Music was from Dj Whiney
We got our outfits from Sainsburys – see them online here