Tropicana Nights – A Brilliant 80’s Night Out with the Girls

Saturday 19th Sept marks an exciting night for the women folk of Knebworth. Tropicana Nights arrives at Knebworth Barns. A night of pure 80’s decadence, fancy dress, brilliant music and much drinking and laughs.

I was organiser mummy, gathering up the football mums and the year 1 mums to see who fancies a night out. We are all children of the 80’s so a perfect mummy night out. 14 of us in our group and lots of other groups of friends had got tickets too. I advise booked in good time, we booked around 8 weeks ago. As tickets had sold out by 4 weeks before the event.

Reminising

The week leading up to Tropicana Nights was filled with a lot of Whatsapp messages and Facebook posts discussing outfits. I searched Poundland and found THE MOST AMAZING 80’s (Hello Kitty) eyeshadow pallet. Many of us browsing Amazon and picking up cheap vest tops and plastic bangles.

I have loved George Michael since 1985, I clearly remember completing page 1 of the Panini 1985 smash hits sticker album with 4 stickers of Wham, I bought the Make it Big tape from Woolworths and that was it. Hooked. 30 years later…OMG that’s scary….I still adore their music.

Top 3 Favourite Wham Songs

1. Edge of Heaven
2. I’m Your Man
3. Everything she Wants

The Big Night

So Saturday arrives with a frenzy of organisational messages, how we are getting there, it’s a 15 min walk from my house, how we are getting home. Lucky me, one of football dads drove 4 of us there and I was going to walk home, yeah right in 6 inch 80’s stillettos;-). My neighbour Lucy and I got ready together. I made a huge jug of Pimms Turbo (250ml pimms, 250ml gin, 800ml lemonade plus ice to fill) and we crimped each others hair.

I did my make up following a you tube video which was AMAZING 80’s hair and makeup

My outfit is below, I am the one of the right…of course a ‘Choose Life’ vest top. I made my raaraa skirt. I am wearing hubbys boxer shorts, as skirt is tad see through for just a pair of pants. Pink leg warmers, 6 inch stiletto heels. Amazon bracelets and a Ted Baker blue necklace. Bag is from Accessorize. Total spend on new items £10 to Amazon.

Found this great Amazon store called Direct 23 where I got everything from and we were ready for Tropicana Nights !

My hair was crimped all over, and I finished the look with another pound land find a blue lace bow.

We arrived at the venue at about 8:30ish, a bit merry. Ran around said hello to everyone, checked out all the amazing outfits. If I was to award a fancy dress prize, based on amusement and effort I would have to go for Alison Brown as Mario as the winner. She looked amazing, and completed the look with severe thick dark eyebrows and a tash. She is the middle one.

The Event

Knebworth house is somewhere I have been before for meetings.  We used to use it a lot at Tesco’s. It’s a beautiful location and the church in the ground is where hubby and I got married 8 years ago. The barns are used for wedding receptions and parties normally.

There is a bar area with a small dance floor and then another larger barn where the disco was set up. There was loads of 80’s décor so the barns looked really great. But oh my gosh it was busy and to quote another friend Madonna there were a lot of rules. So it took around 20 minutes to be served at the bar and when we were served it was £22 for a bottle of wine!! Bit weird but we were allowed the wine bottle but not wine glasses, so had to drink out of plastic. And the plastic glasses were not allowed on the dance floor!  There were a lot of security there telling us off for being naughty.

This rule was actually quite dangerous as its not right to leave drinks unattended ladies, so we were downing the drinks so we could hit the dance floor every time a cool song came on. At least with me it was just downing a small plastic glass of wine. Slightly different for those people (Michael Jackson) drinking pints.

I introduced myself to the guys who run the Tropicana Nights, who I had already been in contact with on Facebook. To let him know I was here and I was definitely going to write this blog. I had a moan about the drinks and the queuing, he agreed, everyone was moaning about it! I’ll always be honest in these blogs and anything I talk about on Mrs Mummypenny. He was very nice to give me a bottle of prosecco for the us girls. Double result I didn’t have to queue for 20 minutes again!

A bit of Info from the Tropicana Nights Website

Tropicana Nights is the ultimate 80’s party night for any occasion. If you are looking for a fun filled evening of pure 80’s music and dancing for the over 25’s, then look no further. Come and join us at one of our amazing parties and indulge yourselves in pure 80’s heaven.
Tropicana Nights Website

Venues toured include Guildford, Southend, Watford, Hastings, Maidstone, High Wycombe and Knebworth. They are back again in Knebworth on 6th Feb, I am sure we’ll be there again:-)

Disclaimer – I have not been paid for this review, all views are my own.

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