Just because you’ve settled down and had kids, doesn’t mean you have to give up partying.
One mum loved raving so much, she decided to set up a business that meant she could bring her baby along too.
Faye Kenny, 32, from Leeds, West Yorkshire, hosted her first event for newborns after giving birth to her son Ziah, now seven, as she could not return to her old job in performing arts and needed some cash.
Now, BoomChikkaBoom hosts raves for groups of 10 to 600 parents and babies and she has even posted parties for celebrity couples like footballer Peter Crouch and model Abbey Clancy.
Before falling pregnant, Faye was an art teacher but in her spare time, she loved house music and the club scene.
Faye, who is also stepmum to her electrician partner Antony Dacres’ two children, said: ‘I was pretty hardcore and when I became pregnant with Ziah I carried on working.
‘But I found out I had a heart condition, dilated cardiomyopathy, when the heart muscle becomes stretched and thin.
‘A lot of my work was physical and it wasn’t good to have my heart rate so high whilst I was pregnant, so I had to give it up.’
After Ziah was born, Faye found it hard to make friends with similar interests who also had kids – and it led to a whole new career.
She said: ‘I was the first in my friendship group to have children, so I didn’t really have anyone I connected with.
‘I found the mum and baby groups to be really cliquey and a bit old school, so when my brother suggested I try throwing a baby rave I thought it was a brilliant idea.
‘I got a friend to make some flyers and posted them on my personal Facebook page and asked my friends and family to share it.
‘I didn’t have a business page or a business plan or anything like that, and it sold out in less than a week.
‘I had my whole family helping out. I used their cars to transport stuff to the venue in Leeds, my grandma helped out with sewing material for me to have on the floor.
‘The feedback was amazing. I thought, “If I can sell this many tickets in a week how many will I sell in a month?”‘
Faye uses clubs across Leeds, hiring them during the day when they are usually empty.
She then creates themed raves for parents to enjoy as much as the children.
At first, she hired the sound system and lights but as the company grew, she reinvested the money to buy the equipment.
Now they have a snow machine, bubble machine and disco lights to create the ultimate party atmosphere and charge on average £6 for an adult and child, and £2 for additional children to take part.
‘We’ve had a Take That versus a Spice Girls rave, and reggae, rock, old school, trap, metal, RnB themes. We’ll do a Halloween remix and in August we held a Pride rave, where everybody came dressed in rainbow colours,’ she said.
‘It’s a question of working out what people want and adapting it.
‘We react to the crowd and change things up if we need to, which is why it’s so good. They last between one to three hours.
‘The kids get a real confidence boost from it. It’s good to help bring children out of their shells.
‘We cater for the child’s development, but also tap into what the adults like. It could be that they recognise the songs, which gives them a bit of who they were back before they became Mum and Dad.’
After a friend suggested she could do with a more permanent base, especially as she was acquiring more equipment, in April, Faye took over a unit in a warehouse in Leeds after raising £7,000 using crowdfunding to get it off the ground.
As well as hosting baby raves at festivals, BoomChikkaBoom holds mini raves and activity days in shopping centres, drama classes, messy play sessions, cinema screenings for parents and children, and themed events for Halloween, Mother’s Day and Christmas.
And, after a suggestion from one of the parents, they now host raves at care homes and respite centres for adults with learning disabilities.
Faye has also branched into high end children’s birthday parties, hosting one for Peter Crouch and Abbey Clancy’s daughter at their Surrey home.
‘We did a rave in their back garden, with an inflatable igloo,’ Faye recalled.
Now Faye employes 10 members of staff and is booked out until January.
She added: ‘We are still investing in the company so having our own venue is stepping it up a notch.
‘I never had a business plan for this, I never set out to do this and really make money from it. It was something to do while I had a baby because there was nothing else like it.
‘As a parent, I still go to the events the company hosts when I’m not running them, because I know I will like it.
‘I thought it would be for a short time while I had my son, but I’ve built it up and now I’m so passionate about it.’
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source https://metro.co.uk/2019/10/23/mum-loved-partying-creates-baby-rave-business-son-10967793/
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