We’re ravin we’re ravin! – Big Fish Little Fish family rave

“We should consider every day lost on which we have not danced at least once.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche
Dancing..  People love to dance. Our little girl dances to any and every beat she hears – she dances in the doorways of shops that play music, she bops in front of the buskers on Exeter High Street – she LOVES to dance.  Parents love to dance too, but sometimes we get so wrapped up in day-to-day tasks and work and parenting and everything else, we forget.  But never fear fellow owners of small people, Big Fish Little Fish are here to remind us to dance.
 
Anyone who has been raving has either witnessed someone dancing with abandon or has been lost in the throw of abandonment themselves. Like ancient tribal rituals, the Rave scene in the UK was about abandonment and release, it was a scene to be proud of (unlike the shell suits in my last post).
With this in mind, Big Fish Little Fish (BFLF) family raves are a stroke of genius, directed at parents just like me who still have quite a bit of rave in them.  Even their tagline rocks: “2-4 hour party people” 

Being a pair of (not-that-old) ravers (teens in the early 90s) the hubby and I have been really looking forward to going to a BFLF rave, so when the organiser dropped me a line to invite us along we thought it would definitely be rude not to.
 
BFLF run successful events across the country and have won awards for their efforts. Each event is themed differently for music and fancy dress.  Being an ex Drum n Bass / Jungle raver I was a bit worried about the Techno / Steam Punk theme but we embraced the fancy dress element with wigs, fluro outfits and face-paint.
We got the the Exeter Phoenix nice and early, we one one of the first groups in and we headed straight to get our faces painted by the wonderful Mel from The Face Painting Company who made Madame into a Monster (as requested) and gave me a bit of a makeover after.
 
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I’ve yet to see a production in Exeter Phoenix, but it is a great venue.  It’s spacious, has many rooms across two floors, an outside area, food and a licensed bar!

The main room was set up with the DJ’s on the stage at the front, activities for the kids at the back from The Creation Station which included making steam punk glasses and a robot mural for colouring in and graffiti.

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We were greeted with a tasty Drum n Bass set from King Farmer and it was very hard to concentrate on sticking sequins on glasses with my girl when I really wanted to dance. The main room was all sound system and lights, it did what it said on the tin, it was a rave (minus the sweating, semi naked gurning crazies).

As we bopped and created, the organisers blew bubbles from the stage, glitter bombs exploded and giant balloons bounced across the audience.  It was hard to decide what to focus on first, dancing or doing!

The event was well executed and professionally run with excellent, high level production. There were several areas including; seating around the bar, a small area for really little children (that we didn’t use as ours are quite big) an outdoor area and a room with activities for bigger kids upstairs.

We spent quite a bit of time in the upstairs room where there were a lot of Dad DJs (The Magnet, The Horn, and Nanobot) hanging around the decks and some Ikea play tents and tunnels where the kids went a bit wild (pics below courtesy of our mate Paul at Tempo Media).

Somehow, the hours had drifted into minutes, we heard the call for the parachute in the main room and headed downstairs to check it out.  By now Signal Jammer was playing his headline Techno set, the room was full and parents and children were dancing in front of the main stage.
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Everyone piled under the parachute (pic courtesy of Phaze Photography – thanks guys) and danced, kids and parents looking delighted in equal measures.

We had an ace time, the kids were kept busy and the event was incredibly well executed, my only moan is that I would have loved to have been able to have danced more!

On the way out there was a Happy Monkey Smoothie for each child, which was a really nice touch.

BFLF events are run all over the UK and are celebrating their 2nd birthday at Exeter Phoenix on Sunday  1st October. Tickets are £9 and they have DJ SS (who is AWESOME).

GO and enjoy, I promise you won’t be disappointed!

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