The Fright Night Halloween Ball

The 3rd charity ball, the one that had to be postponed and rearranged due to covid 

I was gutted when we had to postpone this event as I was on a roll with putting on annual events and so excited for this theme but it wasn't to be and of course the safety of our guests will always come first.

2021 rolled in and no one wanted to speak about any plans out loud just in case we jinxed it and was put back into lock down but thankfully we was given the go ahead and it was just what we all needed after almost 2 years of staying home, not being able to see family and friends, watching endless videos of people fighting over toilet rolls, having to watch Boris and his dodgy hair  gives us briefings every evening and generally dealing with the virus.

Our hearts and thoughts go out to all those affected by the virus.

It was well worth the wait, we knew it was going to be a really fun theme but once again it was so much better than our visions and expectations  and it was just  so much fun. 

It was a night we wish we could do on repeat.

Given the circumstances people had found themselves in the last few years we didn't have as many sponsors or auction prizes but we still sold almost 200 tickets and raised £3500 for our two chosen cancer charities Trekstcock and Willow Foundation which was a brilliant amount and brought our fundraising total to over £19,000. As always this was massively down to everyone who purchased tickets for the ball, raffle tickets and all those who donated prizes or sponsored. I will truly never be able to thank you all enough, it means the world to me.

To find out more about who Trekstock and Willow Foundation are and what they do to help those affected by cancer please check out out our charities page.

The brilliant Auction prizes we were donated this year were 

-Gin tasting tour

-3 course meal with cocktail at Shaka Zulu london

-Spa day for 2 with 3 treatments each at Bannatyne Spa

-Midweek 4 ball gold day at Surrey National

-Bottomless afternoon prosecco at Mayfair Lounge and Grill in the Cavendish Hotel London

-Chelsea football signed by players from the 2021/2022 first team squad

Raffles prizes we were very kindly donated were 

-Hair care set by Maria Nila  worth £75

-Cluequest live escape game voucher for 3 worth £90

-Slip n slide personalised slippers voucher

-Hawk walk voucher for Willows bird of prey and wildflife trail

-£50 voucher for Near and Far Camden

-Axeperience voucher 

-Full body hot stone massage  voucher from The beauty Parlour

-Go karting race session from Team Sport

-£40 voucher from Bravissimo

-5 class pass frrm Hot Pod Yoga

£50 voucher for Fego restauran

-Lapland goodie box from Lapland UK

-Craft Gin Club box from Craft Gin Club

-Personalised name necklace from KK Designs

-£50 voucher from Rose of Stitches

-£20 cook voucher

-£20 voucher from The Craft Box by Ellie 

- Hamper of goodies from Little Scented Melts

-Cut and Blow dry worth £40 from Hair by Ruby

-3 hour session voucher for 2 people at Flipout Croydon

-350 Swarovski voucher donated by Kane Design and Build 

-£150 voucher from Aesthetics Bar Herts

-£25 Rigby and Mc voucher

-Cinderella Voucher from The Beauty Parlour

The effort people made with their costumes was fantastic, we had everything from your usual Halloween skulls, zombies, witches, vampires and horror film classics like pennywise to the mask, DC characters, Disney characters, Marty McFly, a Viking, the spice girls, police officers, pimps to the terminator.

The time and effort put in was outstanding and I can't thank people enough.

We started off with our guest having to walk through the very dark tunnel of hell..... smoke everywhere so you couldn't see what you was walking into cobwebs on every surface, hanging dolls, bats and bones, a zombie in a cage, gravestones in and out of the tunnel and the creepiest sounds you really do not want to hear on a dark night in a dark tunnel.

Once again we was lucky enough to have the amazing With Love Hope hire us her products and come in and help transform the smaller of the two rooms into the complete horror room. 

The giant light up letters spelling out BOO made a great photo op. 

Thanks to our sponsor Kane Design and Build we even had an Electric Chair prop for people to have their photos taken, our guests loved it.

We went all out horror in the small room but my vison for the main room was gothic mansion and we created that perfectly with burgundy satin table covers, skulls, cobwebs everywhere, black drapes on the ceilings, bird cages and antique books. Each guest was given a small bottle full of alcoholic witches potion as their table favour which added the perfect touch to the tables.

We had Wayne Trice back for the 2nd year to perform his incredible magic and host the auction and raffle again, he is so good at this and really gets people to dig deep into their pockets and bid big on our auction items. 

As always we hired the photobooth from My Fun Photobooth and this year we tried out the Selfie Pod which was brilliant, I personally love a Photobooth and this one had so many more fun features. Our guests loved it so much we almost beat the record of the most photo's taken in one night, next year we will rectify that and the title will be ours!

To add a little more fun this year as we was all different types of fancy dress we had an incredibly talented caricaturist Chris Burke join us for a few hours, guests got some really fun drawings of themselves. 

We had a DJ from All Star entertainment keeping the dancefloor full at all times.

One of our biggest thank yous has to go to the events manager Louise tat Surrey National for hiring me the venue, sorting the delicious 3 course meal and letting me run with all my mad ideas without questioning any of it.

Thank you to the 3 sponsors this year, Kane Design and Build, Bruern Cottages and H20 Wiser Services LTD and to Aziz Panni, Kieran and Emma Docherty and Linda and Gordon pope for your very generous donations meaning we could put on the night we wanted for you all and for. it to be as good as it was. 

We've already said it but it really was the best night, the photos below are proof of that and we cant wait for next years ball, its sure to be another huge hit and we are very excited to spend another evening with all our favourite people raising lots of money for 2 wonderful cancer charities .