Friday night saw all manner of colourful characters attend Ryde Theatre for the Mad Hatters Ball.
The event was a fundraiser put on by Platform One with an Alice in Wonderland fancy dress theme, so as you might expect there was a vast array of weird and wonderful costumes.
The crowd weren’t the only ones adorning ‘tweedle dee and tweedle dum’ hats either; the bands put extra effort in strutting their stuff in outfits varying from slinky sequined numbers through to white rabbit themed costumes.
The theatre itself had been decorated as if by magic by pixies (or possibly by members of The Park Centre, but I prefer the idea of pixies) dressing the walls of the place with giant playing cards among other things.
In the middle of the room was a table covered with a pretend party feast- a giant cake taking prime position surrounded by large bowls of jelly and sandwiches!
Throughout the evening stilt walkers towered above the revellers and to the side there was even an “Alice’s Sweet Shop” manned by some of the Platform One students.
Headlining the night was electro-trash band Arcade Eden, a brother and sister electronic duo with a live drummer who were recently signed to Ear Candy Records.
The Island electrolytes had been busy in the recording studio of late putting the final touches to their debut album (due out shortly!) so the show was an opportunity to throw a few new tunes out there.
As mentioned in our post last week, Island favourites The Operators were also performing and support was provided by Moving Jane.
Between bands, beats were supplied by DJ Chris Awesome and DJ Krooks kept the party going until the wee hours of the morning.
Around 2am attendees slipped off into the darkness never* to be seen again.
*This line may not be factually true but the event did close its door on the madness around 2am.
Check out the full gallery of images below from the night.
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Images: Chris Cowley, Contrast TV
