Will we ever see the return of the “Dinner Dance”?

I'm not going if they do reappear!!

We used to take our staff to one every Christmas and it was always a really good night out.

I can remember going to one or 2 back in the 70s. Rotary club or Round table. Fund raisers.
There'd be games and raffles to spend your money on.
Come to think of it we still have ceilidhs.
Tomorrow night there's a music and food fund raiser charity do.
I won't be dressing up though.
The dinner dance must have been a different thing. Was it ballroom dancing as in Victor Sylvester come dancing?

I had a difference of opinion with my FIL at the first dinner dance they invited us to.He wasn't best pleased,to say the least,when I refused to "stand" for the Queen at the end of the night .I solve it though I just went to the loo at every dance after that one .

Hope not..

DH belonged to a professional organisation and the local branch had a dinner dance every year. We also used to attend conferences 2 or 3 times a year, sometimes abroad, and they were black tie.

We used to go to some 'posh' ones with my husband's company. What a chore they were for a shy person like me.

Oh gosh no no no

They were a truly awful thing. Sago, I have similar memories of my mother. Thankfully I only ever attended a couple before they died out. They seemed to be dominated by social climbers attempting to outdo their "friends".

My Dad used to be a member of an organisation that had regular dinner dances throughout the year. He and our Mum used to go, partly under sufference thinking it was 'the place to be'.

Once a year there was a family dinner dance and members children could go along too. I thought I was so grown up getting ready to go to the posh venue the first time I was allowed to go..........Honestly???? I was bored stiff! So many stuffy adults with their noses in the air, no entertainment interlude for the kids, no modern music or dances! Such a disappointment.

My father in law was chairman of a society that held one or two in the year it was torture for my very shy poor mother in law. She not only had to greet everyone but present prizes it was a very uncomfortable watch. I hated every minute as I was also dragged along. Thank goodness they are a thing of the past.

Oh I do hope not!
I remember going to one with probably my first serious boyfriend and his parents . I felt so grown up but woukd rather stick pins in my eyes than go to one now - and reader, I did NOT marry him 🤣🤣🤣

Going back to the ‘80s, DH’s company held annual dinner dances. The board of directors, their wives, and the chairman and his wife were each required to sit at a table with mixed staff. It wasn’t too bad for my DH who had risen to the board from the factory floor and knew most of the older staff and how the factory worked. I, as a local girl who had worked in the factory offices didn’t find it too much of an ordeal either. However, in my mind’s eye, I can see other directors wives, especially the chairman‘s wife sitting in stony silence throughout the meal - they were such snobs and couldn’t hide that they’d rather be elsewhere! What sticks in my mind is that the chairman‘s wife wore the same outfit every year! Thankfully, DH was headhunted by a company who firmly believed such events were a thing of the past.

I remember them from the 70s. Having to dance with the boss. I would hate to go to another one. Balls in the 80s were very different.

I think dinner and dances would be very much a hackneyed concept these days. One of the firms I worked for had one annually, most of the female staff went under sufferance and with resentment as to the outlay of having to get kitted out in an outfit that wasn't wanted, would hardly be worn to justify the price tag. Fair enough if you wanted to go and enjoyed that sort of thing but it was expected that staff would attend.

Even worse are the "Ladies Night" beloved by such male oriented organisations, laid on as a sop gesture to members' other halves letting them know that this was their one night of the year where you are accepted into their inner sanctum with all the pleasure that entailed such as rubbing shoulders with his -- old cronies-- fellow members. Very much something I associated with my late father in law, golf club dinners and all that. I remember going. just the once, once was enough! particularly when one after dinner speech included gem"s such as "we'd like to thank the ladies for letting us out to play" however many times they did. Thankfully all that died a death with that generation who really didn't want women around it seemed to me and behaved like a bunch of old chauvanists. What woman in their right mind would want to be around such individuals anyway. Nowadays golf clubs at least, are very much mixed, not only from the point of view of male and female but also age groups and ethnicities.

Ooh, I remember my parents getting dolled up to go to dinner dances in the 70s. My mum would wear a hairpiece with ringlets and a beautiful dress. My dad would look very handsome in a dinner jacket and smell of aftershave. They would come back with tales of listening to a cabaret and having chicken in a basket. The hight of sophistication!!

I went to dinner dances at really nice locations usually mid summer or New Year in the early 80s they were lovely at the time. A chance to dress up and really look forward to good food and dancing with disco music. It was costly at the time ticket only but memorable it wouldn’t happen now its not trendy and outdated.

My parents went to dining night clubs, different concept to todays clubbing.
They dressed in their finery, at the night club you ate dinner and dance to an orchestra. This might have been a London thing.
I chuckled at the comparison when my kids said they were going clubbing.

My folks used to enjoy them in the 60s. Ballroom dancing, my mother in a fancy dress, my father in a dinner jacket. They were good ballroom dancers.

Yes Terri I didn’t want to mention those Ladies Nights, where the men had funny handshakes. Luckily, a sudden lack of babysitters meant we couldn’t attend many!

Before he started his own company, my DH worked for a big corporation and we had to go to these ghastly events.
Until recently, our local Lib Dems used to have fund-raising dinners (no dancing), but I think they're not that popular any more.

Round Table, 41 Club, Rotary along with the Masons still have dinner dances

They are good for raising money for local charities, along with keeping venues in business.

I made my first speech at a dinner dance, cringing inside, honestly it really helped with both my self esteem and body confidence.

No thank you.
Although they were charity fundraisers.

We used to be invited to them by DH's aunt and uncle. It meant buying long dresses, a dinner suit etc for DH and MIL and I used to rather dread them. Auntie always wore long gloves and was bejewelled.

I went to some very glitzy fundraisers in the USA when I was a visiting professor. Very much black tie and posh frocks. They were very keen on that sory of thing. The academics who hosted me asked me to be a "motivational speaker" at one and I assumed it was for expenses only. A couple of weeks later a check for $1000 appeared. Then I got asked to do another in a different city. I could probably have made a very good living out of that.