Oh right sorry.
Thank God for you lovely ladies, I will not here a word against any of you.
Cheers princesses.
DTS Dave XXX XXX
1st Rat Pak
I had a wonderful night, the venue is lovely with soft seating areas in the main room, to chill on.
its only 11 mins from my house
I walked in to see a couple I hadn't seen for a long time, it was worth going just to see them, Mike you can stop looking amongst that list of 'A' list stars, I never did fancy Brad Pitt (don't tell him) and Nelson Mandalla is a bit old for me, not sure what he would make of the 'Fletcherettes' and if you have any free samples from that new diamond mine you have bought you know where to throw them, I can allways collect, my jabs are up to date.
The DJ's played a blinder, but what do you expect from some of the best DJ's in the UK.
Wonderful to see Ruby and Lucky, thank you.
Jamie your a star.
There were some wonderful dancers there.
Highlights
been Lucky's 1st and last dance, Crewella for leading me in WCS thank you, that's it now I feel comfortable with you.
Lucky and Ruby thank you so much for the private you gave the children, hate to think what my conservatory is going to be like now he can slide properly. Ruby thank you for showing me some new Lindy moves.
Gerry and the children for beening there.
Thank you to the people that helped with dancing with dancers that have less confidence, that I asked you to dance with. We all have something to give, even if its a 4 min dance.
Mike you have a lovely venue and with Kay running it with you this could be a truly wonderful freestyle, the bar staff were loverly, what a difference to be greated with a warm smile
I can't make the next one i'm at STORM the following on the 19th of April is my birthday so with it on my doorstep I will be celebrating it there, I will be organising lifts and lodgings so if anyone want to come PM me.
It was a great night, with great music, I hope the rest of the Ratpack events go well this year.
The venue is great and comfortable and don't forget it's open for CEROC every Monday - No I'm not on a commission
(Mind you Mike if we could do a deal!)
It's just that I live 5 mins away and want it to be successful
Thanks to everyone that came along but particularly to the following who made it a superb night......
Ian, Maja, Marc, Rachel, Rob and Kay plus, of course, Lucky, Ruby and the Venue staff.
Hope those who cannot travel to Storm can make it on the 8th March, the Workshop is Latin Passion by Maja.
Mike
Sledge Hammer....Trust me, I know what I'm doing!
What a brill night,
Thanks Fletch for making me feel so welcome (as you always do),
Very proud to now be a considered a 'Fletcherette',
Thanks to everyone for the dances, and to Stokie for showing me the famous 'Stokie Slide', is it patented yet, or can I show Ringo ?
Wow what a night.
A huge thank you to Cruela for taking me.
Highs
Dancing with Ruby and so many forumites.
Marc and Ian's DJing.
Low
The night had to end
Missing dancing with Twirlybird and Caz
I had a fab night - great music from the DJs, and some fab dancers.
The venue could seriously do with aircon though!
Love dance, will travel
It was a great night. Fantastic atmosphere in the bottom cool corner. Cool as in lower temperature. Seems to be where forumites and circuit regulars gravitated towards. I blame the presence of cake.
DJs were fantastic under difficult circumstances. My impression was that there were three discrete camps. The musicality appreciative, the musicality aspirational and the musicality deaf. A number of beginners and musicality noobies were sat out, looking on, wondering where these people and dance style materialised from.
Therefore, will the musical remit stay the same or be altered for the next one? If so which way...... more bounce or more interpretive stuff.
OK, not wanting to burst the little love bubble but I thought I would add my views on last nights opening Rat Pack freestyle.
The Heavenly
Dancing with Lucky. A big thank you to Fletch for him being there.
The Good
Some of the music.
Meeting new forumites and seeing local dancers again.
Many excellent dancers. Thanks again to Fletch for getting such superb dancers to a Ceroc Midlands event.
The 2am finish.
The lighting.
Only having to travel 30 minutes each way.
The ritual kebab afterwards.
The Bad
Some of the music. I love these DJ's and I had such high hopes. It should have been an awesome night. However the DJ's seemed to be a little restrained from their usual styles.
Sticky floor. Last time I danced on this floor it wasn't like this so not sure what was going on last night. By the end of the night my knees were hurting. Even when I danced at Chiswick my knees survived.
Only one room when two was advertised.
The blues set not happening for the last three hours as advertised. Ceroc classics were still being played at 12.30.
Each DJ having a few shorter sets rather than a two hour complete set each. (New thread to follow).
£12 entry (for one room??????)
Wrong post code on Ceroc Midlands website.
The Ugly
The heat in that place. Mike could have quite easily made a killing if he advertised that place as a sauna.
The state of the toilets. Only one toilet in the ladies worked but the floor was flooded. Dance shoes and a flooded floor are not a great combination.
At least two fire doors being chained up.
In all last night was an OK opening night. I guess there's always going to be teething problems. Maybe my expectations were too high. I did believe that with those three DJ's we were in for something very special. I would be very interested to know why there was only one room. As for future events? Well I guess that depends on the management.
I had a great time last night (although having done Utopia the night before I was absolutely cream crackered) A last minute decision for me after some gentle persuading
A good combination of faster music at the start finishing with the chilled stuff. Worked well. Great DJ line up.
It was lovely to see so many friendly faces and I had some superb dances Floor was perfect for me (though I do like it slippier than most) but found the music was really loud down near the stage.
The journey was great - much nearer than I thought as well so I might make it back sometime
And Jamie, & for "that" dance... will miss you ...
Strange. I didn't find it at all sticky. In fact I changed my shoes for the last half hour, as my others were hurting me, and was slipping all over the place as it was too fast. Maybe it was a certain area of the floor or your shoes?
I think this is better for the DJ's and the punters, it gives them time to enjoy dancing too and if you aren't enjoying a particular DJ's set, it's not 2 hours before you get a change! I was led to believe it was because Marc was extremely tired, so Rob did a bit more of the later set to give him a rest.Each DJ having a few shorter sets rather than a two hour complete set each. (New thread to follow).
It took me 3/4 of an hour to find the actual venue after the sat nav took me to 2 wrong areas and asking 3 separate people for directions!Wrong post code on Ceroc Midlands website.
Maybe that's why you found the floor sticky, if your dance shoes had got wet.The state of the toilets. Only one toilet in the ladies worked but the floor was flooded. Dance shoes and a flooded floor are not a great combination.
Besides with it being so hot you should have sweated out all your excess fluids and not need the toilets.
Had a nice night and was glad to go and say my final farewell to Jamie and finally get Lucky.
Hi everyone!
Just to say that I had a great night at Rat Pack last night.
The Good
Getting to dance lots with Tom (Batman?)
Lots of forumites to dance / play with
My cheese dance with BoardRider to What a Feeling
Mine and Jamie's cheesy dance
Meeting new forumites and dancing with as many of them as I could, feet permitting.
The Bad
Bit too hot
Making Jamie fall on the floor during his warm up dance
Really painful feet
Being stood on a few times and having some woman thrown into me when me and Jamie were just stood swaying...
Jamie's last propper freestyle
Overall a really great night. Hoping to make it down again for Fletch's birthday weekend
Firstly, respect to Ceroc Midlands for trying to finally get some quality back into the area. It was great to see a line up of DJs like OXOs, Marc and Rob on the same bill closer to home.
So how was the night? I wanted this event to be good. Having to travel for hundreds of miles every weekend to find good venues, run well, with a good level of dancer is getting very old. I spoke to a Midlands regular at the start of the night who said "All the ingredients are here, but will it work?"
There were lots of great dancers that turned up to make the opening evening go with a swing. Thanks mainly it would seem to Fletch's power of persuasion at UTOPIA and via her dancers network - she even managed to encourage Lucky and Ruby along! I certainly haven't seen any leaflets for any of these Rat Pack events outside of the Ceroc Midlands area (lethargic promotion again? Surely not ). In fact the first leaflet I saw was on a table AT THE EVENT! D'oh?! So, thank you Fletch!
I loved a lot of the music that was played. I understand that the level of dancer really needs to be taken into account to give everyone a memorable and enjoyable night. But I found the short sets to be too choppy for my liking. The music lacked continuity because of this, and there were some quite dodgey tunes still being played late on. I think this wouldn't have been a problem if the event had the two rooms that were billed, and indeed we were charged for! So for making the best of a bad situation with the one room. Thank you Rob, OXOs and Marc
The venue is lovely, but was like an oven! There's just no excuses for this. The place was pretty much at capacity. I understand that Midlands events aren't used to dealing with capacity crowds, but this was beyond a joke. I spoke to lots of people who were sitting out of tracks they wanted to dance to because they were trying to cool back down. I spoke to Rob, and I saw him asking Mike Allsopp for fans. Luckily he was able to borrow a fan from Marc to supplement the little blue snail fan he went out and got. The problem was that the room was very large and it was already far too hot by then. Better forward planning next time maybe?
The bar staff were very friendly. The bar prices weren't too high. The floor was extremely patchy, very fast around the edges, very sticky in the middle (there's a joke in there somewhere). The comfy seating makes this a lovely venue - if only they could get the smell from the kitchen under control. We moved from where we were sitting initially because of the overwhelming smell of superheated chip fryers. The only smell stronger was the stench of p!ss in the Gents! Oh man! It made my eyes water! Like Twirlie, I was also appalled to see the fire exits chained and locked shut! That is just lethal!!
I agree with Twirlie Bird that any new venture will suffer from teething problems - the question is, will the things that have been highlighted be dealt with? I certainly would think long and hard about returning for a one room freestyle for £12. Good DJ line up, but that's Daventry prices for a small one room provincial freestyle.
If you do decide to check out the next one in three or four weeks time. You need to keep an eye on your car. I got back to mine to find it had been interfered with, luckily I was able to remove the scratches today with some T-cut
Last edited by StokeBloke; 11th-February-2008 at 12:34 AM.
There are currently 1 users browsing this thread. (0 members and 1 guests)
Bookmarks